


Forget Me Not

by bluecurls



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Darcy Lewis, Canon compliant when it suits the story, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Darcy is the fandom bicycle and I love it, Dates of events fudged to fit the story, F/M, Flashbacks, Kidnapping, M/M, Multi, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-11 13:11:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 56,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5627806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecurls/pseuds/bluecurls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis woke up remembering her name, her family and everything that's ever happened to her -- except the fact that her father is a superhero, she's friends with an alien prince, and she's banging two men old enough to be her grandfathers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was not going to write another story. New year, new hobby, yes? But then winter storms stranded me in an airport for 12 hours, and the mind started thinking and next thing I know, I had eight chapters of this story outlined.
> 
> I'm on the fence about if this is a good thing or not.
> 
> This will be a multi-chapter story.

It was dark. Darcy Lewis hated the dark. For as long as she could remember, darkness held the No. 1 spot on her short list of great fears. No. 2 was running out of coffee.

She didn’t know why she hated the dark or how the fear started in the first place. All she knew was she started screaming in her bedroom one night, having thrown away her rocket ship-shaped nightlight that afternoon after Stacey Adams told her only babies had nightlights in kindergarten. Her dad didn’t make fun of her. He loved to tease, but he always stayed away from anything he knew was important to his daughter. So rather than laugh at her tears, he took her to the living room where they built a fort out of blankets and pillows, popped popcorn and watched cartoons until the sun rose, school night be damned. (She also had her first cappuccino the next morning, but that’s another story.) That evening, at dinner, he presented her with a teddy bear that worked as a night light, starting out bright when the lights turned off, growing dimmer as Darcy drifted to sleep. If she woke up in the middle of the night for any reason, the bear’s sensors would note the change and illuminate once more.

Darcy loved Beary. (Don’t give her grief about the name; she was five!) She took him to college and New Mexico and Norway and London – not that she remembered any of that. He now had a place of honor on her nightstand in Brooklyn – not that she remembered that, either.

She remembered darkness. The dark and the cold. She had no idea where she was, how long she was there or why she was there. They didn’t tell her. They talked about her. They talked over her. They didn’t talk to her. Sometimes they whispered. They argued a lot. Sometimes they yelled; fought. She preferred that over the whispers. She knew something was going to happen when the voices argued. She could prepare herself for it. She had no idea what to expect from the whispers.

“Darcy? We’re here, doll.”

The voice was so close and yet it wasn’t. She tried to turn her head towards it. She felt like she should know it, but she wasn’t sure. Even so, her instincts told her to go to the voice, to follow it. It was strong. Safe. Warm. The voice wouldn’t hurt her. Not like them.

She sniffed. She wouldn’t cry. Darcy Lewis didn’t cry – even when the urge to do so practically choked her.

“Sweetheart,” a voice said. It was different than the other one, but just as comforting.

She didn’t want the voice to stop talking. She needed something to hold on to, an anchor in the sea of darkness. She wanted to shout, to scream for the voice to keep talking, but all she could get out was a small whimper.

“We’re here, Darcy; you’re safe now. We’ve got you.”

Safe. How much time had passed since she allowed herself to think of that word? Safe meant warmth and comfort, home and her father. Her father. She strained to hear him, to pick out his voice from those swimming inside her head; the voices she didn’t know and wanted to forget and the two she knew, knew, were important.

“Open your eyes, baby; just for a minute. Can you do that for us?”

She wanted to, but what if it was a trick? What if she opened her eyes and the voices weren’t there? What if she was still in the room – alone, cold and in the dark?

“I promise you, Darcy; you’re safe.”

The first voice was cajoling, the second almost commanding. It was difficult to resist either one. She blinked, her heavy eyelids barely peeking before she slammed them shut once more. She felt a hand grip one of hers, the touch strong and comforting. This wasn’t a hand that would hurt her. She knew that.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Nice and slow.”

She tried again, the brief glimpse of light she got the first time enough of an incentive to force her eyes open once more. This time, she kept them open, blinking quickly to adjust to the bright light in the stark white room, so grateful for the fluorescent light overhead and the sunlight streaming through the large window on her right that it took her a minute to realize to acknowledge the two men watching her. Two extremely handsome men. Like romance book cover handsome.

Darcy squeezed her eyes shut and counted to three in her head. Opening one eye cautiously, she watched as the dark haired one of the two smiled, his blue eyes getting lighter as she focused on his ridiculously handsome face. Who knew there were actual people with a chin like that walking around the world? He had a dimple. In. His. Chin. She wanted to poke it. She wanted to kiss it. Darcy closed her eyes once more and took a deep breath before she did something to embarrass herself. She was safe. Maybe she was dead. That sucked, but death was far better than where she was before. It had to be.

“Sweetheart, can you look at me?”

She opened her eyes, this time focusing on the blond who looked like a Greek god. He had blue eyes, too. They were lighter than Chinny McChinerson, but just as focused as they narrowed on her as if drinking up every single feature before he allowed himself to relax and smile. Holy fucking shit, that smile was killer! If she was dead, heaven rocked. Oops! She should probably cool it on the holy fucking shit talk. Darcy wasn’t religious, but she was pretty sure that kind of language wasn’t kosher.

“Um …” She cleared her throat, wincing at the scratchiness of her voice. How long had it been since she tried to do more than scream? Why would she scream? She had a memory of shouting, yelling. Pain. She pushed it aside. It hurt to remember. She didn’t want to. She wouldn’t.

“I’m going to get the doctor,” Blondie said, giving Darcy one more brilliant smile before he left the room. Chinny didn’t follow, his focus entirely on Darcy. He lifted something to her cracked lips. Oh. A straw. She must have hesitated because he smiled. It was a sad smile, a pained smile, but also a comforting one.

“It’s only water, Darcy,” he promised. Something in his voice and the pained expression on his face made her believe him. She sipped slowly, cautiously, moaning when the tepid liquid soothed her abused vocal chords. She drank deeper, faster until the tiny cup was empty. She whimpered when he took the cup away. She wanted more! “I know, doll. Let’s have the doctor look you over first, OK?”

Doctor. That was the second time she heard that word, first from Blondie, now Chinny. She looked around the room. It looked like a hospital room. She had no idea why she knew that, but now wasn't the time to focus on such thoughts. She was in a bed, plain white sheets and a heavy white blanket pulled to her chest. She used her right arm to lift the covers and peek – yes that was a generic hospital gown. Hospital. She was in a hospital. If the plain white room, and faint scent of medicine and bleach didn’t make that clear, the IV attached to the back of her left hand sealed the deal. Chinny’s eyes tracked her movements.

“It’s to keep you hydrated,” he said, answering the question she couldn’t make herself voice.

“How long …”

“You’ve been here for four days – nearly five,” he answered, carefully lifting her left hand to his lips so he could place a gentle kiss over her knuckles. The gesture was so old timey, she wanted to swoon – and Darcy Lewis didn’t swoon.

“You’re up!” a cheerful voice chirped seconds before a tall blond woman wearing dark blue scrubs under a white lab coat walked into the room, Blondie on her heels. Darcy watched the woman – she introduced herself as Dr. Felicia Waters – as she checked consulted the clipboard in her hand before setting it down at the foot of Darcy’s bed to check her vitals, all the while keeping a running commentary that Darcy felt she should find annoying, yet it wasn’t. “It’s amazing what sleep does for the body,” Dr. Waters remarked after taking Darcy’s blood pressure, writing something down on the clipboard with an encouraging smile. “You are above and beyond where I hoped you would be, but that isn’t surprising; not from the stories I’ve heard.”

“We’ve met before?” Darcy whispered, giving Chinny a grateful smile for the second cup of water he brought to her lips, water she drank slowly, practically reverently, through the plastic straw.

“Not personally,” Dr. Waters trilled as she checked Darcy’s IV, “but there's been talk, usually from these two,” she continued with a nod to Blondie and Chinny at the foot of Darcy’s bed. They were tall. Holy crap, they were tall! And broad-shouldered. Is this what doctors looked like these days? If so, she definitely should have given more thought to medical school even if her father was against it.

Her father! Darcy tried to push herself up. Where was he? Something must be wrong. He would never let her wake up in a hospital alone.

“Darcy, baby, what it is?” Blondie asked, rushing to her side.

“My dad,” she gasped. “I want my dad.”

Blondie exchanged a look with Chinny. The dark-haired man shrugged. Blondie turned back to Darcy. “Sweetheart, maybe you better –“

“I want my dad!” Darcy shouted – or tried to shout.

“Easy,” Dr. Waters soothed, tapping a button to raise the upper part of Darcy’s bed so she was sitting up. “I’ll have your father notified that you’re awake and want to see him. In the meantime, keep drinking water. It will help your voice more than anything.” She started walking out the door.

“Wait!” Darcy cried, again her voice sounding louder on her head. “Why are you leaving me with them?” she asked, gesturing to the two men. The doctor looked confused, her brown eyes narrowing as she made her way back to Darcy’s bed. The two men glanced at each other, equally flabbergasted.

“You don’t recognize them?” the doctor asked.

Darcy considered the question carefully as she studied the two men. Tall. Built. Hot. She wished she knew them, but life wasn’t that kind. “No,” she answered, not missing the pained look that crossed Blondie’s face. Chinny looked pissed, but that didn’t scare her. Somehow she knew he wasn’t mad at her. “Should I?”

“I’d say so,” Chinny answered before Dr. Waters could. “We’re your -- "

"Boyfriends," Blondie finished quickly with a sharp look at the other man. "We're your boyfriends.”

Darcy wanted to laugh at his announcement, but instinct told her that would make the situation worse. Instead, she turned to Dr. Waters, who was watching Darcy carefully. The doctor didn’t look surprised by either man's claim. Chinny crossed his arms – Whoa! Was that one made of _metal_? – over his massive chest defiantly, almost as if he expected her to challenge him.

“I’m Steve,” Blondie said helpfully before pointing at Chinny. “This is James.”

“Okay …” Darcy said slowly, still waiting for someone to yell “Gotcha!” “And you say we’re dating? The three of us?” Darcy sat back in the bed. She had a million questions. How did they meet? How did it work? Were they with her, or with each other, too? People were OK with it? Her father was OK with it?

“Miss Lewis?” the doctor asked. “Do you know what year it is?”

Darcy groaned at the question. She was a fucking hospital cliché. How embarrassing. Still, she’d rather answer the question now before her father arrived. This was the type of situation he would not be able to ignore. “2007,” she answered with a heavy sigh. She felt the beginnings of a headache behind her eyes. “Look, I know I told you I want my dad, so can we hold off on 20 Questions until after he leaves? I don’t want him to worry.”

“Miss Lewis –“

“Fine, fine; you can tell him I’m a little hazy on some details – namely Hot and Hotter over there – but I’m sure he’s still coming to terms with the whole threesome idea, not that he has any room to judge, given his dating history. I’m 18 – totally legal and all, but still.” She cocked her heads as she studied the two men. “You know I’m 18, right? You two look like you’re in your late 20s – not to judge, but that’s a pretty big age difference. Has he met you guys? Background checks? Shovel talk?”

“Oh God,” the one called Steve groaned.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Darcy rushed to continue because, duh, they were hot and she didn’t want them to go just yet. This was probably another one of her rebellious acts, like when she threatened to go to culinary school, so short-term was definitely the name of the game. Damn it! It was so like her to remember throwing up on the Tilt-A-Whirl at Debbie Clark’s 11th birthday party, but not remember banging two of the hottest men she ever had to pleasure of getting into bed.

Remember.

Her mind suddenly flooded with images.

Fire. Buildings crumbling. A man in the sky. Falling. Cold. Dark.

“Darcy?” Steve picked up her hand. “Darcy, baby, open your eyes. We’re here, sweetheart. We’ve got you.”

“I want my dad,” she whimpered, her eyes squeezed tight as she fought to keep the tears from falling. “Please get my dad!” She’d barely choked out the words before her hospital door burst open, a dark-haired man with crazed eyes rushing to Darcy’s bed, pushing aside Steve with barely a glance at the bigger man.

“Baby girl?” Tony Stark asked, his voice wrecked with worry as he took in the sight of his daughter in the oversized hospital bed, her skin as pale as the sheets that covered her, her large blue eyes filling with tears as she shakily raised her arms.

“Dad!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! So many great comments right out the gate! Thank you, thank you!
> 
> It looks like there's going to be two, possibly three, mini stories woven into the overall fic. My original intent was to focus on our beloved OT3 finding their way back to each other, but I wanted to take a stab at the whole Tony is Darcy's dad angle, and the idea grew from there.
> 
> I'm aiming for 15 chapters, but be warned that it could go up. (Hopefully not as long as Everything She Never Knew She Always Wanted. Yikes!)
> 
> I plan to update this story twice a week; more if the words are flowing and real life decides to chill.

She was asleep in his arms, her head heavy on his shoulder. He couldn't feel his fingers on his left hand and his leg was numb.

He didn't care.

“You could lay her down,” Steve remarked from the chair he placed near the foot of Darcy’s bed, having refused to leave despite how many times Tony told him he had it covered. James was slouched in the corner, the casualness of his stance a direct contrast to the sharpness of his eyes as they swept the room in a continual pattern, seeing everything and missing nothing. It freaked Tony out less than he expected it to. “She’s asleep,” he added unnecessarily.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” Tony muttered under his breath.

“Tony …” Steve started before breaking off in a frustrated sigh. For a second, Tony felt sorry for him.

A very brief second.

“Don’t you think we should talk about what she said?”

Tony brushed a hand over his daughter’s hair, tucking the dark strands behind her ear. He knew from studying her chart that physically, she was almost completely OK. Dr. Waters was bringing in a specialist to further explore Darcy’s memory loss; a Dr. Sampson from Baltimore. Tony had Pepper vet him. She approved, which meant he approved. “She’s had a traumatic experience,” he replied, repeating Dr. Water’s theory practically verbatim. “It’s natural for the mind to repress that which it isn’t ready to recall.”

“She thinks its 2007!” Steve hissed angrily, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the handrails of the chair. “Do you know what that means?”

Tony knew exactly what that meant. He had a second chance.

* * *

Tony Stark wasn’t there to see his daughter born. He didn’t see her take first step, try her first solid food and hear her say her first word. He liked to think that had he known he had a daughter meeting all those milestones, he would have made an effort to bear witness to such feats, but Darcy’s mother, Brenda, didn’t think he was ready for the responsibility of fatherhood. Granted, she was right, but he still felt cheated on all he missed – and all he would have missed if Brenda hadn’t gotten sick. Faced with either placing her daughter in the system or reaching out to her former college fuck buddy, Brenda chose the latter, calling Tony from hospice to let him know it’s a girl. He was coming off a three day bender and had a great laugh at her joke. It wasn’t until she e-mailed him a photo of 16-month-old Darcy, a spitting image of Tony (except for the eyes; she had Brenda’s eyes) that he ditched a congressional hearing to fly to Chicago to meet with Brenda. He took over her care, bringing in every specialist he’d ever heard of, but it was too late. Rather than pay for a medical miracle, he paid for Brenda's funeral, the words Beloved Mother and Friend on her granite tombstone a reminder that he wasn’t alone.

He had a daughter.

Tony knew nothing about raising a child. Hell, his own parents knew nothing about raising him and he turned out … well, he survived. Sitting in the beige leather seat of his private jet, a practically-comatose Darcy curled in his lap, her thumb in her mouth while her other hand gripped his silk tie with a strength he couldn’t pry apart no matter how often he tried, he vowed to do better by her. Sometimes he succeeded. Other times he failed. He still drank. He still slept with too many women and avoided anything he didn’t want to devote his attention to, but Darcy never fell in that category. He may have missed a lot of milestones in the beginning, but he was there when she learned how to eat with a spoon and use a cup. He was there when careful steps turned into running practically overnight and “No” became her favorite word. He walked her to her classroom on the first day of preschool (technically, it was the office next to his at Stark Industries with an Oxford University graduate filling the role as teacher in Darcy’s class of one) and finally agreed to enroll her in kindergarten after Happy and Rhodey helped him screen every person at the elite day school Darcy could possibly come in contact with, from the night janitor to the nanny of every single classmate. (That didn’t stop him from employing a former marine drill sergeant as Darcy’s bodyguard/volunteer room parent, a move that was approved only after he made a sizable donation to the school’s music fund. Ironically, his offspring couldn’t carry a tune.) He taught Darcy her colors and numbers, played endless games of hide-and-seek, and was always the last one to tell her good night, even if it was on the phone from several countries away.

She was brilliant, his Darcy. And stubborn. She never really grew out of the Terrible Twos and even worse Tortuous Threes. She was always snarky, could be bratty, and was always ready to voice her opinion, stand her ground or outright refuse her father’s word over hers. He admired that. He didn’t tell her because he’d never have peace otherwise, but he loved how strong his daughter was, even when she turned down early acceptance at MIT to pursue political science at Culver University.

_“She’s doing it on purpose,” Tony fumed, a crystal tumbler of scotch in hand as he paced the living room floor._

_“She doesn’t want to be an engineer, Tony,” Pepper said patiently from her seat on the sofa, having born witness – once again – to a father-daughter conversation that ended with Darcy storming out of the house and Tony turning towards the bar. "She doesn't want to take over Stark Industries."_

_“She sure as hell doesn’t want to be a politician!” he exclaimed._

_“But she does want to find her own way,” Pepper said in her quiet tone that he normally found soothing, but now grated on him because she wasn’t taking his side. He signed her paychecks! She should always take his side!_

_He flopped onto the sofa. “She has everything she could ever want.”_

_“She wants to earn what she has. Tony, you’ve spent your life proving to yourself you weren’t Howard Stark. You, of all people, should understand why Darcy needs to prove she’s more than your daughter.”_

_Tony finished his drink. “No one knows she’s my daughter.” Brenda had been adamant that Darcy keep Lewis as her last name. She told him she would sign over all parental rights to Tony if he agreed to keep her identity a secret from anyone who might use her against him. For once, he accepted the papers handed to him and signed without question. He always hated the Stark name and the weight he carried. He wouldn’t let it drown his daughter, too. Anyone who saw them together accepted the story that she was Pepper's niece. If Tony seemed to dote on her, people assumed it was because he wanted Pepper._

_“She knows she’s your daughter,” Pepper said, giving his hand a brief squeeze before she turned back to her laptop._

_She wasn’t fooling anyone. He knew she was talking to Darcy. “Tell her when she's done pouting to bring food.”_

_Pepper didn’t look away from the screen, but there was a half-smile on her face as her eyes skimmed the message board in the screen’s lower left-hand corner. “She’s already on her way and she’s bringing burgers. She didn’t want to ask if you wanted fries or onion rings, so she bought both.”_

_Tony closed his eyes. “That’s my girl.”_

Darcy ended up delaying her freshman year at Culver. She took a gap year after graduating top of her class from her private high school. She spent the first two months building houses with Habitat for Humanity (Tony held in every bleeding heart comment he had because he knew she only signed up because her long-time crush, Jeffrey Beam, was volunteering with the organization, too.) before flying to France for a 12-week intensive culinary course at Le Cordon Bleu.

The fact that her decision came on the heels of Jeffrey’s decision to come out of the closet was purely coincidence.

_“Congratulations,” Tony said as he strolled along the tarmac with Darcy, ignoring the pilot trying to get his attention. “You found something more pointless to pursue than political science.”_

_She rolled her eyes. “So says the man who started a fire when boiling water.”_

_Jesus Christ, she was never going to let that go. “I was trying something!”_

_“It was water, Dad!”_

Then he was taken hostage in Afghanistan. He thought he was going to die and leave his daughter alone.

He might as well have.

* * *

“Tony?”

He opened his eyes quickly, his arms automatically tightening around Darcy. No! They couldn’t have her. He would fight them with everything he had. They would not touch his little girl again.

“Tony; it’s me.”

There was a soft clicking sound, the light from the bathroom making it easier for Tony to focus on Pepper standing by Darcy’s bed. Her eyes were red and swollen from tears he knew she rarely cried, one hand gripping Steve’s arm as she took in the sight of the girl she considered her own. “Dr. Waters needs to check her vitals.” Pepper held up a small overnight bag. “I brought her some pajamas and socks. You remember how her feet are always cold? Even in Malibu? The nurses said they’d get her changed if we stepped out for a moment.”

“I’m not leaving,” James announced, beating Tony to the punch.

“I’m her father,” he argued.

James snorted, but didn’t respond. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and resumed his silent sentry pose.

“She’ll be safe with Bucky,” Steve said softly.

“Really?” Tony seethed. “Because this never happened when she lived under my roof!”

“Tony!” Pepper reprimanded sharply, yet quietly, her eyes immediately going to the woman still dead to the world in bed. Darcy always was a heavy sleeper. It probably came from years of falling asleep in her father’s workshop when Tony was on a roll.

Steve didn’t bother to disguise his guilt. Tony hated him for it. If he’d denied it, he could hit him. He could plow his fist into Rogers’ perfect face and maybe, just maybe, it might make him feel better, if only for a moment. He could hit him now – he knew Steve wouldn’t stop him – but James was still a question mark. Plus he was pretty sure it went against national law to punch Captain America when he had sad puppy eyes.

Goddamn blue-eyed America’s favorite son asshole.

Tony eased himself out of Darcy’s bed, grunting in acknowledgement when Steve lifted the tubing to Darcy’s IV, allowing Tony to slip out without disturbing his daughter. He watched as Steve gently kissed Darcy's forehead before he carefully pulled the covers over her, leaving her left hand uncovered, resting it on one of the numerous pillows Tony demanded his daughter have. She liked to fall asleep surrounded by multiple pillows' softness, but kicked them all to the floor in sleep.

“It might be easier if she were on her back,” Dr. Waters said as she entered the room, two nurses behind her. Tony looked at Pepper who nodded slightly. She checked them out. They were safe.

“She doesn’t like to sleep on her back,” Tony started to explain.

“It gives her the hiccups,” Steve and James finished.

Dr. Waters nodded and made a note on her chart as Tony stomped out of the hospital room. They might as well have shouted it from the rooftop. She was theirs; not his. Everything he knew about her, they knew it, too. Hell, they knew it sooner! She was 10 before they figured out she had a gastroesophageal reflux that resulted in the hiccups if she remained on her back for long periods of time. When did they discover it? Their third date? Eighth? When they moved in together?

“Tony.”

He ignored the urge to shake Pepper’s hand off of his arm. He didn’t want to hurt her. She missed Darcy almost as much as he did. Instead he turned and pulled her into his arms, ignoring Steve as he made his way to the vending machine at the end of the hallway. “She doesn’t remember, Pep,” he whispered in her ear, well aware of the serum’s ability to amplify every word uttered in secret. “She think’s its 2007. She knows nothing about what happened!”

Pepper pulled back slightly. “Tony …” she said in a familiar tone that was part warning, part weariness. “I know you miss Darcy, but this is not how you get her back.”

“Pepper –“

“No!” she was firm. “What happened happened, and as soon as Drs. Waters and Sampson say we can start filling in the blanks, we will. _All of it_.”

Tony shook his head. “You weren’t there,” he argued. “She called me dad! She was happy to see me! She curled up next to me like she used to! Do you know how long it’s been since I hugged my daughter?!”

Pepper ran her hands slowly up and down Tony’s back. “I’ve missed her, too.”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t hate you.”

“She doesn’t hate you, either. She’s hurt, Tony. That’s a _good thing_ ; it means she cares. If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t be hurt. She wouldn’t be angry.”

Tony swallowed the lump in his throat. He thought he cried all of his tears while she was gone, then again when she returned. “I just … I want it to be the way it was. Before Iron Man. Before Fury and the Avengers, fucking SHIELD and Hydra.”

Pepper took Tony’s hand and led him to the private sitting area. “That’s not on you, Tony,” she said firmly. “Everything that happened would have happened with or without the suit.”

He wanted to believe her, but he didn't. They sat in the room, two people used to having all the answers helpless. He couldn’t stay still. He tried. He held Pepper’s hand. He rested his elbows on his knees. He ran his hands through his hair. Part of him knew Pepper was right. Everything that happened, everything that would happen was bigger than him, bigger than all of them. But it wasn’t fair that Darcy had mistakenly ended up in the middle. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Everything he did was to keep her safe and he failed. He not only failed, he lost Darcy in the process.

He wanted her back. He wanted all of her back. He would do whatever it took to get her back, even if it meant he’d lose her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Yeah. This chapter got angsty fast. It doesn't answer a lot of questions. I did that on purpose. You, my lovely readers, are kind of gonna be like Darcy, getting information in bits and pieces. I've never written this way before (I'm more happy fluff, romance or straight up smut), so I'm excited for the challenge.
> 
> There will be smut, though. And fluffiness. I promise!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know about you, but this story could use some Super Soldier input.
> 
> Let's start with Steve, shall we?

Steve studied the photo displayed on his StarkPad. It was an image of the facility in which Darcy was likely kept. They weren’t sure. She was found unconscious less than 50 yards from the building engulfed in flames. Had her memory been intact, she could help Steve and the others fill in the blanks. Instead she was sitting cross-legged on her hospital bed, playing Blackjack with Tony, completely unaware of the years that had passed, let alone the weeks she’d gone missing. Steve pushed aside his frustration with the situation and focused on the photographs of the burned building from multiple angles, searching for anything that had some resemblance of a clue.

“Ha!” Darcy crowed, flipping over her card, revealing the queen of hearts to the ace of spades already showing. “Twenty-one.”

Tony grumbled something about ungrateful offspring, but leaned over to mark her victory on the whiteboard propped on the small table next to Darcy’s bed, Tony having decided it had no place on the medical floor of Avengers Tower unless it was being used to stave his daughter’s boredom. The two were tied, again, proving to Steve what he long suspected: Darcy counted cards – perhaps even better than Tony. Maybe that story Jane told about Darcy winning three months’ worth of grocery money in a poker game wasn’t just the ramblings of a drunken astrophysicist.

“Hey man.”

Steve glanced up at the quiet greeting, nodding at Sam before he closed the files on his tablet. Leaning forward, he placed it on the low table in front of the chairs he and Bucky had occupied 24/7 since Darcy was admitted. The serum that flowed through their bodies made it possible for both men to function on little to no sleep, but the stress of the last few weeks, coupled with the shock of Darcy’s indifference to both of them, had taken its toll. Steve glanced at James, slouched low in his seat, legs splayed wide with booted feet planted on the floor. His head was down; the L.A. Dodgers hat Darcy bought him after attending his first and only major league baseball game pulled low over his eyes. Not wanting to wake him up, but knowing how pissed he’d be if Steve left without telling him, he gently tapped James on the arm. His head immediately snapped up. His body followed, going from relaxed to attentive in seconds. “Yeah?”

“Sam’s here.” Steve gestured to the man who was watching Darcy and Tony with a fascinated expression on his face while pretending he wasn't. “He’s gonna stay here with you while I swing by our place and grab some of Darcy’s things.”

Bucky’s sharp nod of assent was all he did before his face and posture took on that of the Winter Soldier. Steve sighed, knowing there was nothing he could say or do to persuade James to put that part of him away, the other man convinced the skills forced upon him would protect Darcy where James Barnes had failed. He pushed himself to his feet, caught Tony’s eye and jerked his head to the door. Tony nodded in understanding before turning his attention back to Darcy. “Weird, right?” Steve asked as he and Sam walked down the hall.

“That’s one word,” Sam replied. “I know Darcy. I know Tony. I’ve known what they are to each other, but seeing them together …” He shook his head in wonderment. “How has the world not figured it out?”

Steve shrugged. He knew, before, the two were careful not to be seen together, limiting their contact to places out of the public eye before it no longer was an issue. “You know Tony. He lets the public see what he wants them to see, plays their game far better than they could ever imagine.” Steve pushed the button for the elevator. “I’d almost admire him for it if …”

“If he wasn’t the one benefitting from Darcy’s memory lapse?”

Steve hunched his shoulders. “Yeah. We have her back and she’s alive. That’s the most important thing, but seeing them together, feeling like some outsider …” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is this how he’s felt, seeing her with us?”

Sam shook his head. “Couldn’t say for sure, man, but probably.”

“Son of a bitch,” Steve slumped against the wall. “Tony can be a pain in the ass, but no one deserves that. I never gave it much thought, it all happened before and it was not up for discussion with either one, but maybe I should’ve pushed more.”

“Are you saying that because, maybe, Tony would be trying to get Darcy to look at you and James as something more strangers?”

“You know how you keep telling us you’re not a trained therapist? It’s insight like that which makes us ignore you,” Steve told Sam.

“And reflecting like that isn’t going to make any of this better,” Sam shot back as the elevator arrived.

Steve waved it away, waiting a second before pushing the down button again. “I know, but it’s all I’ve got.”

Sam shook his head. “It’s not all you've got,” he said pointedly.

“Yeah,” Steve said as his thoughts shifted from Darcy to James. “Bucky. You saw what he did, right?”

Sam nodded. “It wouldn’t be the first time he called on the Soldier to get him through something difficult.”

“But this isn’t a mission,” Steve argued. “This is personal. He loves Darcy. She loves him. Is tapping into the Soldier to keep her safe gonna mess up his progress? Pull him in so deep that we can’t reach him?”

“Again, not a trained therapist, but –“ Sam rushed to continue as Steve opened his mouth to protest – “he’s doing this to keep Darcy safe. His mission is all about protection, not taking out a target. It may make the rest of us uncomfortable and we should definitely keep an eye on him just in case, but I think he needs that focus to stay in control. James always had the shorter fuse. Think back to when you first got him back, how you tracked every movement, almost as if you were afraid the moment you stopped watching him, he’d disappear. That’s how he feels about Darcy.”

Steve stuffed his hands in his the pockets of his jeans. “We were doing so well, Sam, the three of us. I know it’s not something that happens that often, even in this day and age, but it works for us and for me and Bucky, it’s like all the shit we went through didn’t matter because we were together. I’m not saying it made up for everything, but she made it easier to let go of the past and focus on the future.”

“You say it like you’ll never have that again.” Sam clapped his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “You got James back and he'd lost more years than Darcy.”

“We don’t know what they did to her, why she’s repressing everything. Why eight years? Why not one or five? What’s the significance of that?”

“Could be something, could be nothing,” Sam said as the elevator arrived for the second time. “It’s gonna take some time. Time and patience.”

Steve nodded and walked into the elevator. Patience he had. It wouldn’t be easy, but Darcy was worth it. Time he wasn’t so sure of.

* * *

_“Tony?” Steve walked into Tony’s workspace, nodding absently when Dum-E rolled over to nudge him in the knee. He repeated the man’s name, louder, hoping he’d hear it over the noise blaring from every corner of the room. This was music?_

_“Hey Capsicle.” Tony slid out from under something Steve didn’t have a prayer in identifying. He pushed his goggles up to rest on his forehead. “Cut the music, Jarvis,” he demanded, the room filled with blissful silence before he finished speaking. “What are you doing in my part of the world?”_

_“My bike’s still making that noise,” Steve replied, choosing to ignore ‘Capsicle.’ He tried asking Tony to stop before. Not only did that not work, he started saying it more, going so far as to hijack his e-mail (capsicle@shield.org) and change his voicemail. Natasha told him not to react, but Steve was pretty sure the man would never fall for the ignore-him-and-he’ll-stop routine. Tony Stark did not like to be ignored. “You said you’d take a look at it, remember?”_

_“Yeah, yeah,” he said as he walked to his workbench, plucking a few tools from the pile covering the surface. “Bring it in next week.”_

_Steve bit off his sigh. “That’s what you said last week. That’s why I’m here.”_ _But it was too late. The music was on again and Tony was back under the machine. Frustrated, Steve turned to leave, Jarvis’ voice stopping him before he reached the door._

_“If you don’t mind the intrusion, Captain, I know of a mechanic who might be able to help.”_

_Steve paused. He knew Jarvis was Tony’s creation, but he trusted the AI more than the man who made him. “Yeah?”_

_“Miss Lewis often works on the automobiles Sir has neglected. I’ve sent the address of her shop to your StarkPhone,” he continued just as Steve’s phone dinged with the information._

_“Alright,” Steve said as he looked at the screen. “I’ll give her a shot.”_

_Some men might have balked at the thought of bringing their Harley Davidson Softail Breakout to an unknown mechanic, and a woman at that, but Steve wasn’t like most men. He knew (even before he met Peggy) that women were a hell of a lot tougher than they appeared to be. Smarter, too. If Jarvis thought Miss Lewis was the right dame, er, woman for the job, he had no reason to think otherwise. Of course, that was before he got a good look at her. Pale skin. Blue eyes. Dark hair pulled back in a braid. Several strands of had come loose during her workday, framing her face with soft curls that she impatiently pushed away, smearing engine grease on her cheek in the process._

_She listened as Steve described the problem, chomping on an impossibly large wad of bubblegum the entire time. She got down on her knees when he started the motorcycle (and yeah, his mind went to a place he wasn’t proud of; he was a man, not a saint), her head cocked to one side as she noted the rattling in the engine’s normally-smooth purr._

_“You say its worse when you’re riding?”_

_“Not at first,” Steve corrected. “In town, it stays the same. I get upstate, let her go, it gets louder.”_

_She stood up, one hand on her hip as her eyes swept over him. “How fast are we talkin’?” she asked with a playful smirk._

_“How fast are you willing to go?” he shot back automatically. He couldn’t believe the words the second he said them, but before he could open his mouth to apologize, she threw her had back and laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that had his balls tightening. What the hell was happening? He hadn’t been so turned on so fast since Bucky!_

_“Tell you what, soldier; give me thirty minutes to finish up here and we’ll take it out.”_

_“We?”_

_She nodded. “Yeah. I need to hear what it sounds like on the open road and I’ve always had a soft spot for fast things.”_

_Steve couldn’t believe this was happening. “You mean bikes?”_

_“Bikes. Cars. Other things …” she let her voice trail off meaningfully. When Steve failed to reply, her eyes narrowed slightly, as if sensing a challenge. “There’s a diner across the street. Pie’s good. Have a slice on me while you wait.”_

_If Steve thought Darcy in coveralls was sexy, he was blown away when she walked into the diner wearing tight blue jeans and a red scoop-necked top with calf-length black leather boots, a well-worn black leather jacket tossed over her arm. Her hair was still in a haphazard braid, but she’d painted her plump lips a deep red._

_“Dude, I said have a slice, not the whole freaking pie,” Darcy exclaimed as she slid into the seat across from him, snatching the fork resting in the near-empty pie tin to scoop up the remains of the cherry pie._

_“It was barely half a pie,” he corrected. “I didn’t see the point in dirtying a bunch of dishes.”_

_“And I love you for it, cutie,” the purple-haired waitress trilled as she topped off his cup of coffee, leaving the check face down on the table. Darcy grabbed it before Steve could._

_“You don’t have to pay,” he argued._

_“Standard client procedure,” she said, handing the check and a twenty to the waitress. “Keep the change, Nicky.”_

_“Thanks, Darce.”_

_“Really?” Steve asked as they walked out of the diner, Steve holding the door for Darcy._

_“Really what?” Darcy shrugged into her jacket._

_“Buying coffee and pie is standard client procedure?”_

_She got that smirk on her face again. “Jealous?” she teased._

_“Maybe,” he said as he straddled his bike, holding it steady as she climbed on behind him._

_“Interesting,” she murmured, taking the helmet he offered. “Guess that means you’ll have to take me to dinner; prove you’re anything but standard.”_

_That’s how Steve Rogers got his first date in the 21 st Century. It was so good, he asked her for a second date before the first one ended. He had the privilege of seeing Darcy Lewis in all her naked glory on date three, and thank fucking God not all women in the future thought skin and bones were sexier than curves. He buried himself deep inside the soft, warm woman beneath him, feeling at peace for the first time since opening his eyes to a new world. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole How Steve Met Darcy scene was an idea I had for a one shot. I think it worked well here, too.
> 
> I'm keeping a list of all the questions I need to have answered before the story ends, but if you already have some, feel free to share them in the comments. I don't want to finish the story and leave something unanswered. FYI: asking me if you can have Steve and Bucky will be met with a resounding "No!"
> 
> Oh, alright; we'll work out a shared arrangement.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I celebrated my birthday the other day. I was going to wait until tomorrow to post the next chapter, but I decided t get ot up early as my birthday present to you!
> 
> I'm off for my post-birthday dinner. Happy Hour birthday drinks were a little too happy last night and by the time I got home, all I wanted were comfy pajamas and another slice of birthday cake. That's how birthdays should be celebrated!

The first thing James noticed about Darcy was her eyes. Not the color, but the way she looked at him, as if she could see everything he’d done, especially the memories he was desperate to keep to himself. One look and she knew. He’d swallowed, waiting for her to turn him away. He had approached her first because months of shadowing Steve was the same as following her. They spent all of their free time together. Steve hadn’t been back to his apartment in weeks, choosing to spend his nights at Darcy’s instead.

Smart move, given how easy it was to break into her place and poke around.

_“You’re Bucky – I mean, James,” she corrected at his flinch. It was subtle, but she saw it._

_He remembered Bucky. Bucky was the ladies’ man, the flirt; the guy who could walk into a dance hall and leave with the prettiest dame there with very little effort. He was the man in love with his best friend, who used coming to his aide to hide the feelings that went beyond brotherly, feelings he was scared to explore for fear that Steve wouldn’t reciprocate or worse. He’d push him away. Bucky couldn’t imagine life without Steve, so he buried his feelings, hiding behind the polished veneer of a Brooklyn Casanova instead._

_Then the war happened. Saying goodbye was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. The urge to pull Steve close and kiss him the way he’d always imagined was strong, but Bucky didn’t dare. Instead, he told Steve to take care of himself – “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back” – and got on the train. The next time he saw Steve, it was like the man he always saw when he looked at him, the man he always knew Steve was and always would be, was brought to the surface. Anyone who had ignored him, doubted him or made fun of him took notice and finally Steve was treated the way he always should have been: with respect. Bucky was proud to follow him into battle. Proud and terrified when he realized Steve’s new abilities made him even more reckless than before. His last thought as he fell from the train was Steve. Who was going to keep him safe? Who was going to take care of him? Who was going to love him?_

_“You're Stevie’s,” James said, his voice low and raspy. Nearly six months had passed since he broke through Hydra’s conditioning, Steve’s image on the bridge the first chink in the mental prison they’d kept him in for decades. He tried to fight against the final wiping, keeping Steve’s face in his mind as Hydra ripped everything from him once again, but it wasn’t enough. He nearly killed Steve. He watched him fall from the helicarrier and it was like a switch turned on in his brain._

_“Steve!”_

_He dove into the river without a second thought, swimming beneath the dark water for the man in blue. The man from the bridge. His mission. His Steve._

_“You left him by the river.” Darcy leaned against the car she’d been working on when James waked into her garage, having timed his visit on the day when he knew she’d be alone, her partner having gone out of town for a family emergency. Normally, Steve would make an excuse to hang out with his girl, an excuse James knew Darcy never fell for, but he was off chasing a lead James planted to guarantee some one-on-one time with the woman who had stolen Steve’s heart. “Why go through the trouble of saving him if you were planning to leave?”_

_James turned away to study the collection of tools organized along one wall of the garage. The Winter Soldier would have a field day in this place. Even without tapping into the monster’s train of thought, James could identify at least 20 makeshift weapons within reach that would leave Darcy dead before she took her next breath._

_But that wasn’t why he was there._

_“I wasn’t ready,” he confessed, wishing he could take back the words the second he spoke them. That was not his plan. He turned around. She was still watching him. Her arms were crossed over her chest, not defensively or protectively, but more like she was holding herself back. From what, he didn’t know._

_“So what? You almost kill him, then save him, then disappear for half a year leaving him to worry when he isn’t actively looking for you or cleaning up the mess you leave behind whenever you attack another Hydra cell?”_

_She was mad. No. She was pissed. James took a step forward. This was interesting. He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction his presence would have on Darcy Lewis. He assumed fear, definitely curiosity, but anger was never an option. “I had to know what happened to me,” he defended his actions. “I had to make them pay.”_

_“Dude, I totally get that, but you made Steve pay in the process. He’s been worried **sick!** When he isn’t worried, he’s this big ball of guilt, convinced everything that happened to you is his fault and that somehow he should have realized that when he was frozen and got out to save you!” _

_That was so typical of Steve. The man always carried the weight of the world on his shoulders – even before they were big enough to do so. “Are you really yelling at me?” James asked. “You know who I am, right? What I’ve done? What I can do?”_

_She rolled her eyes. “I know who you are. I know what you were made to do and what you’re capable of doing.” She pulled a pack of gum out of the pocket of her coveralls and stuffed it in her mouth before offering him a piece. James took it without thinking. “I also know that part of you is gone.”_

_He almost choked on the sweetness of the cotton candy bubblegum. Everything in the future was so fucking sweet -- even bread! “Yeah?” he challenged, hoping with everything he had that she was right. He wouldn’t say he was all the way healed, he wasn’t sure of that was even possible, but he felt he was good enough to face Steve – after he faced Darcy. That’s why he was there. He had to know if his presence would help or hinder Steve. If she told him it would be better for him to stay gone, he would. She loved Steve and Steve loved Darcy. His observations made that quite obvious. He was happy for Steve -- when he wasn’t jealous as hell. “What makes you so sure?”_

_She pulled her cell phone out of her other pocket. “You’re Steve’s,” she said as she unlocked the phone’s screen._

_“You’re Steve’s,” he corrected as he watched her pull up Steve’s name from her list on contacts. He could have the phone out of her hand in 2.3 seconds, shattered in 3. He could disappear and make it so he was never found. He’d tell Darcy to give Steve a message, to tell him he was OK and that he forgave him for everything (even though there was nothing to forgive). He could continue destroying Hydra, burying every damn piece of it until the ground was soiled with the remains. And then he’d –_

_“Steve? Hi, baby.” She paused and rolled her eyes. “No, no, nothing’s wrong. There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.” She held out her phone, one hand on her hip as if daring him not to take it._

_“You’re Steve’s,” James repeated as he took the phone, not missing the gasp of recognition from the man on the other end of the line._

_“As are you. We’ll figure out the details later.”_

She saw him that day. Not Bucky, the man he was; not the Winter Soldier, the killer Hydra had made of him; but James, the man he wanted to be. She saw him and in that moment, he felt like maybe he could be salvaged, maybe there was more to the second chance at life he’d been given then revenge.

She walked away as he talked to Steve, said nothing when he slumped to the floor in tears, babbling words of nonsense as his friend, _his_ _Steve_ , did the same. She approached him only once, with a bottle of water and her phone charger, which she plugged in without comment before sliding back under the car. By the time he ended the call, Steve having assured him that they were less than two hours out and he’d meet him at Darcy’s, she was curled into a ball on the small couch in her office, her hands folded beneath her cheek like an angel, plump lips slightly parted as she slept. When he placed his hand on her shoulder to gently shake her awake, those blue eyes opened and she smiled in recognition.

She rarely smiled at him now. If she did, it was careful, cautious, as if she wasn’t sure what to make of him.

He hated it.

* * *

“I don’t want to do flashcards!” Darcy slumped against her bed, glaring at Dr. Sampson and the pile of laminated cards he had balanced on his knee. This was the third time the specialist had met with Darcy. He made everyone leave the room during their sessions. Well, everyone except James. He refused, shutting down when anyone tried to talk him into abandoning his post. He knew Steve was worried that tapping into the Soldier’s abilities could have a negative impact on James’ psyche, but it was important to him to ensure Darcy’s safety. That superseded possible negative side effects. It had to, simple as that. “It’s like being in school,” Darcy continued, referring back to yesterday’s session in which Dr. Sampson tested Darcy’s semantic memory. Her knowledge of general events, from world history to how to bake a pie, was on point up until a point.

Eight years. Everything Darcy couldn’t remember anything that fell into the eight year timeline.

“I apologize,” the doctor said, setting aside the flashcards and reaching for his tablet instead. “How about we do something else?”

James narrowed his eyes. That felt planned, as if Dr. Sampson knew Darcy would put up a fight after the headache that were her previous two session – there was nothing wrong with her procedural memory, either – and wanted to ensure total cooperation today. His gaze flicked over his girl (because memory or no memory, she was still _his_ ). She was watching the doctor with that look she got on her face whenever she did the _New York Times_ crossword.

“OK,” she agreed carefully, sitting up and folding her hands in her lap. James knew she knew she was being played, but obviously decided to go along with it to see what the doctor had up his sleeve.

“Very well,” the doctor opened something on the tablet. “This is a series of photographs. I want you to look at them and tell me what you think.”

Darcy took the tablet. “I just look at them?”

“Yes.”

“OK,” she repeated just as cautiously. James left his post, making it look like he was walking around to stretch, but he wanted to see what was on the screen. He paused, for just a second, at the image of Steve in full Captain America regalia. He watched has her hand hover over the screen as she studied the picture – Did she recognize Steve’s eyes beneath the cowl? – before she swiped to the next image, this one of Iron Man. She didn’t spend as much time on that photograph before moving on.

Photo after photo of The Avengers appeared. Some were publicity stills, others were action shots. James saw a few of himself and wondered how that was possible. He hadn’t been with the team long and when he joined them, it was as a sniper. He was there to keep Steve and the others safe. He only killed when he had to.

“So either we're living in one big Comic Con or the world's got a serious case of _What Not To Wear_ happening,” Darcy remarked as she handed the tablet back to the doctor. “I’m gonna need you to fill in the blanks on this one, Doc.”

“You don’t recognize any of these individuals, Miss Lewis?”

“I recognized Captain America,” she told him. “Kind of hard not to with those muscles. I’m sure you know my grandpa was obsessed with him after he went missing. Kind of made life hell for my dad, so when we studied him and the Howling Commandoes in school, I skipped.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Sampson typed something on the tablet. “Why?”

Darcy shrugged. James was good at reading Darcy’s shrugs. This one was her embarrassed shrug, which made him curious to hear her response.

“Miss Lewis?”

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “My dad is pretty laid back about most things, but not his father. I never met the man, but he did a real head case on him. I’m sure it wasn’t all because of Captain America and his Star Spangled glory, but when you’re a kid, it’s easy to blame the one thing that’s tangible and that, for me, was the Captain. So when school said I had to learn more about him, I figured I knew enough and left it at that. It brought my average down and made Marianne Wilson insufferable for years! She figured she was a shoo-in for valedictorian after that, but then she was caught cheating in AP calculus and suddenly my B- in eighth grade world history wasn’t a blight on my academic record. But I’m guessing that’s not the information you were looking for, am I right?”

The doctor shook his head, a bemused expression on his face. “No, Miss Lewis, it isn’t.” He set the tablet down. “What would you say if I were to tell you that Captain America is alive? That the pictures you saw were of him fighting with his team, known around the world as The Avengers?”

“I’d have to refer back to my Comic Con comment,” Darcy said. “I’d also have to question if I should continue to be the patient in this scenario, Doc.”

Dr. Sampson’s smile was kind. “Miss Lewis, you are aware that there are certain events you can’t recall, yes?”

“Dude, I know something’s up with me, OK? I knew that before _Quiz Show_. Dark and broody over there,” she continued, pointing at James, “says he’s one of two boyfriends I have now and since my father has not tried to strangle either man whenever the three are in a room together, there might be some credence to his claim. Add that to the fact that I have not seen my face in a mirror since waking up in this place – I don’t even have one in the bathroom, for God’s sake! – and it’s pretty obvious I’m fucked up in some capacity, so how about you stop playing coy and give it to me straight? I’m a big girl. I can handle it. I’m Tony Stark’s fucking daughter. There’s very little that surprises me.”

“Alright,” Dr. Sampson agreed so benevolently that James realized this was the man’s plan the entire time. “Miss Lewis, Captain America and his partner, the Winter Soldier, are Steve Rogers and James Buchanan, the two men who call themselves your boyfriends. The three of you have been in a relationship for a little over a year. You are one of three humans to first make contact with the demigod known as Thor, which led to meeting Agent Clint Barton, code name Hawkeye. You met Natasha Romanova, code name Black Widow, after she spent time undercover as the assistant to your father, Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man.”

James watched Darcy’s eyes as she listened to the doctor. Everything she was thinking, everything she was feeling, was reflected in her eyes. He saw them shift from amused to confused, from shocked to baffled. When the doctor finished explaining The Hulk’s presence in her life (that didn't take long; as far as James knew, she'd never met Bruce Banner or The Hulk), she looked at him instead of the doctor.

“Is he for real?” she asked.

“He is,” James confirmed.

She leaned back on the bed. “Huh. I guess you’re never too old to be surprised. Wait; how old am I anyway?”

“26,” James supplied.

She nodded as she took in the information. She seemed more startled about her age than anything Dr. Sampson had told her. “Alright, so what do we do now? I’ve got eight years missing, Doc. Where’d they go?”

“That, Miss Lewis, is what we’re going to find out.”

She nodded again. “Good,” she told him. “Does this mean no more flashcards? And can I have something to eat? Something sweet? I used to love warm chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge.” She looked at James. “Do I still like food like that, or have I gotten all boring and healthy in my advanced age?”

“You think broccoli is the bane of earth’s existence,” he told her.

“Well thank fucking God for that,” Darcy replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be told from Darcy's perspective. Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: vague description of violence towards the end of the chapter.

Normally, Darcy was against losing it in public (she did _not_ take after her dad in that regard), but extenuating circumstances (Amnesia? Hello?) had to be worth a Get Out of Jail Free Card. That’s what she told herself, but watching Dr. Sampson watch her with that patented look of patience and understanding shrinks were known for, not to mention Chinny McChinerson – no, Darcy; his name is James – growing tenser the longer she said nothing, Darcy knew a shared freak out wasn’t in the cards.

Plan B: escape.

Tapping into every bit of decorum Pepper ever managed to teach her, Darcy excused herself before throwing back the blankets on her hospital bed and walking (OK, running) into the bathroom. She managed to close the door before she slid to the floor, gasping for breath. She brought her knees to her chest and buried her face in her arms before she screamed, restraint be damned! She had amnesia! Or partial amnesia. Some form of it anyway. It was like something out of those lame soap operas her freshmen year roommate was addicted to (so much so that she flunked out first semester and Darcy had a single spring term; good times). If there was one thing Darcy hated, it was being a fucking cliché. So she screamed. She screamed until she was hoarse, until the urge to cry was gone. She screamed until the feeling of panic subsided, until she felt like she was in control again.

Panting like she’d just run a marathon, Darcy leaned against the door. There was no mirror over the sink. She’d noticed that the as soon as they had removed her IV and Dr. Waters gave into her plea for a shower. That was her first clue something was off. Like really off. The other was her dad, who was treating her like some kind of china doll. And don’t even get her started on the silent statues keeping constant watch over her. It would be easy to forget they were there, that’s how quiet they were, if they weren’t so damn hot that not looking was criminal.

It would be easy to fall apart right now, but that’s not who she was, so instead Darcy got to her knees and picked through the duffle bag of clothing Steve gave her the other day. She thought nothing of it at the time, assuming Pepper put it together and he was the delivery man. He had that old timey sense about him. He’d totally be the type of guy to see a woman carrying a bag and offer to take it from her. But what if he was the one who packed it? Dr. Sampson said she’d been in a relationship with him and Chinny – James, Darcy! Call him James! – for a year. Did he go to her place and sort through her things, choosing those that would bring her the most comfort? And if so, why the hell didn’t he bring her more socks? And warmer pajamas? She was fucking freezing!

“Human space heaters.”

Darcy glanced up at the man – James – standing in the bathroom’s doorway. How long had he been there? For someone so big, he moved like a ghost. She wasn’t sure why it didn’t annoy her and filed that away to analyze later. “I’m sorry?”

“’s what you call me and Steve: human space heaters,” he leaned against the door’s frame, hands tucked in the back pockets of his black cargo pants. “We run a little hotter than most people.”

“I’ll say.” She was pretty sure she mumbled that under her breath, but apparently not quietly enough given the smirk on Chinny’s – James, Darcy! – face. “Does that mean the two of you have something against flannel? Long sleeves? Fuzzy socks?” She pushed aside the T-shirts and loose cotton sleep pants, pulling out a plaid blue button-down. It looked like it belonged in a retirement community, but it had long sleeves.

“You want warmer clothes, we’ll get you warmer clothes,” James said, holding a hand out to Darcy. She took it without thinking, gasping at the immediate sense of warmth his touch brought her. “Told you,” he said smugly.

“Less talking, more body heat,” she replied. Like a moth to a flame, she moved closer until she was all up in his private space, the shirt crushed between then. Yeah, so technically she knew nothing about this guy, but he knew her and for the first time since she woke up, she was warm. His arms slid around her in a move that, while new to her, spoke of familiarity, large hands slowly running up and down her back. She had yet to ask him about the metal arm. She wondered if that was a sore topic of conversation, ‘cause if it was, she didn’t know. She didn’t know!

The small whimper escaped before she could stop it.

“Hey.” James pulled back, his too-pretty-to-be-real face worried as he cupped her chin with his (flesh) hand. “What is it?”

She shook her head. Nothing? Everything? She woke up in a hospital having no idea what happened to get her there and without any memory of the last eight years – years in which her father apparently became a superhero, she decided two was better than one in the dating world and most of the people she knew had code names. What the hell was going on? How did this become her life?

Darcy could feel the panic rising. That was not going to happen! She shrugged out of James’ hold and into the shirt, paying super close attention to the small plastic buttons as she as she breathed slowly in and out. The shirt dwarfed her, hanging nearly to her knees, the sleeves ending past her fingers. She rolled them up past her wrists before glancing up at the dark-haired man who watched the entire production without saying a word. “What?” she snapped.

“You may not remember me, doll, but I know you,” James told her, his ‘take no shit’ tone leaving no room to argue. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t want to,” she grumbled as she made her way back to the hospital bed. Housekeeping must have come in during her escape to the bathroom because fresh sheets were pulled tight over the twin bed. Darcy settled herself on top of the covers, pulling Beary from the nightstand (whoever packed her duffle got that right at least) to cradle him in his lap. She watched as James pulled his chair over to the right side of her bed, leaving the guardrail down so he could rub her right foot with one hand. “That’s not fair,” she groaned as his knuckles pushed into the sole of her foot. Foot rubs were one of her weaknesses. He obviously knew that.

“Never claimed to play fair,” James replied, his focus more on her than what he was doing. “You’ll figure that out.”

“Will I?” she asked. She didn’t mean to. She was not someone who laid her cards out on the table for everyone to see. That was a weakness. People could use a person’s weakness against them. Obadiah taught her that.

James opened his mouth to answer, but a soft knock on the door, followed by Steve poking his head inside, stopped him. “OK if I come in?”

Darcy snorted, nudging James’ hand with her foot in an unconscious gesture for him to keep rubbing. “You’ve barely left since I woke up,” she told Steve as the man dragged his chair to the left side of her bed. “Now you’re asking permission?”

Steve took her hand in both of his. Again, it was a gesture that spoke of a familiarity that Darcy didn’t understand, but it felt too good (too right?) to question. “Dr. Sampson is talking to Tony and Pepper – and Sam,” he added. “I thought I’d check to see how you’re handling everything.”

“Oh, you know,” she said in a breezy tone, employing the whole fake it ‘til you make it mantra for all its worth. “I can tell you about the time I snuck out to see N’SYNC in concert and my first hangover, but if we’ve got an anniversary coming up any time soon, I’m going to ask for forgiveness now because I didn’t get you anything.” James snorted at her words. Steve ducked his head. Was he – yeah the tips of his ears were turning red. Who knew Captain America got embarrassed? “What?” she asked as the two men glanced at each other, seeming to have a conversation with one raised eyebrow (James), a subtle head shake (Steve) and a smirk (James again).

“We missed our anniversary dinner because of a mission,” Steve said as he stroked his index finger down the palm of her hand.

“A mission? Is that the word you use when you have to go save the world or something?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” She pulled her foot out of James’ grasp and crossed her legs. As far as excuses went, it was kind of hard to argue with that one. She wondered how she handled it. She hoped she was cool. She did not want to be the kind of girl who freaked out when things didn’t go her way. “Is that normal? Like, are you guys part of a rotation, where even days you save the world and odd, someone else handles it, or does something light up in the sky to get your attention? Oh! Do you guys have a Bat-Signal?” James laughed again as Steve slumped into his chair with a groan. “What? What'd I say?"

“You always told him he was lame because he didn’t have a Bat-Signal,” James filled in.

“Why wouldn’t you want one?” Darcy asked Steve. “It’s the ultimate SOS! Who’s gonna mess with a man who has a distress call that lights up the sky? Look, I know I just met you … well, kind of, sort of just met you, but are you sure you’re doing this superhero thing right?”

She learned one thing. Steve closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his index finger when he was exasperated. It was adorable.

* * *

_It was dark. That was the worst part. Not the cold. Not the hunger. The dark. She had backed herself into a corner, facing the door, but she wasn’t safe. She knew that. She didn’t have her father’s genius, but she wasn’t an idiot. She knew what they were doing. No light. Restricted food and water. Limited human contact. They were trying to break her. Fuck them! She was Darcy Lewis. She didn’t cave._

* * *

_Her cheek was throbbing. She can’t believe he hit her. Really hit her. It wasn’t a slap across the cheek. He had raised his hand, fist clenched, and struck her with everything he had. She would have fallen to the floor if the others hadn’t held her up._

_“I can make the pain stop, Miss Lewis. Just answer the question.”_

_She wouldn’t. She braced for his fist, but it didn’t come. Instead, she felt something sharp break her skin._

* * *

_They were military. That was obvious. All military had a certain way of holding themselves. That’s how she knew Steve was Army before he told her, the ‘Soldier’ moniker sliding off her tongue before she saw the dog tags he wore around his neck._

_Steve. James. She missed her boys. They had to be going crazy. She knew they were looking for her. They’d find her. All she had to do was hold on until they did._

* * *

_Darcy got into one fight in college. She was ashamed to admit she fought like a girl, pulling the hair of the blond who had the nerve to hit on the guy she was half-heartedly flirting with while waiting for her friends to get out of the bathroom. James tried to teach her to fight. He dragged her to the gym around the corner from their apartment every day for almost a month, promising croissants and coffee, bagels and coffee, orgasms and coffee if she would Just. Listen. To. Him._

_Could she help it if Instructor James turned her on?_

_Darcy pressed her hand against her side. He kicked her today. He hit her, they let her fall and then he kicked her. She was so going to learn how to kick someone’s ass when she got out of there – beginning with his._

* * *

_“Answer the question, Miss Lewis. Answer the question and this all stops.”_

_She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. He made sure of that. They wanted her to break. She was scared she would. He helped her. He made it go away. He made all of it go away._

_“Take her away.”_

_Her feet were heavy as they dragged her down the hall. They passed by a room. She had the feeling it was important, but she couldn’t remember why. She couldn’t remember anything. All she knew was the dark._

_The dark and the cold._

* * *

“It’s alright, sweetheart; I’m here. I’ve got you.”

She felt strong arms wrap around her. She didn’t fight them. They felt comforting. Safe. Steve. She buried her face against him, not wanting to open her eyes and see nothing.

“The lights are on, Darcy. It’s OK now.”

She blinked against the light, wincing at the brightness. She was in Steve’s arms on her hospital bed. James was standing by the side, tense and alert, his face closed off as he took in the scene. She didn’t know that look. She didn’t like it. She had no idea why, but she needed that look to go away. “Come here,” she demanded, holding out a hand. He hesitated, as if he wanted to push it away. Screw that. She grabbed a fistful of his T-shirt and yanked until he was climbing onto the bed with them. She wiggled out of Steve’s hold, shifting until she was on his lap, facing James, her legs encircling his waist. Leaning forward, she pressed her forehead against his chest, sighing when she felt Steve lay his head against her back. It was probably the most uncomfortable position she’d ever been in (that she could remember) and the bed was barely big enough for her, let alone two larger than life superheroes, but she didn’t care.

“Do you want to tell us what you dreamt?”

She shook her head at Steve’s question. Already the memories were fading. She didn’t want to chase them. She didn’t want to remember. All she wanted was to be safe.

"OK, sweetheart," Steve whispered, his breath warm on her neck before he pressed his lips to her shoulder. "Just rest now."

“Stay?” she asked, hating how weak she sounded.

She felt James kiss the top of her head. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Darcy. :(
> 
> Tony's taking the story reins in the next chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the late update! This chapter did NOT want to cooperate. I had several versions going and I forced myself to sit down this weekend and finish one, and then this wrote itself in two hours. WTH, right?

_“I AM IRON MAN?!?”_

_Tony held his phone away as Darcy yelled at him, her enraged voice so clear, he might as well have her on speaker. Pepper pretended not to hear, focusing on her own phone with apparent fascination, but Rhodey was all ears in the suddenly-too-small elevator, his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face as he listened to his favorite teen girl berate her father._

_“What the hell were you thinking? Wait, don’t even try to answer that because YOU WEREN’T THINKING!”_

_“Darcy –“_

_“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be watching a news conference and have your father announce to the world he’s a fucking superhero!? Let’s not forget that three months ago I found out you were missing in Afghanistan because of CNN RHODEY –“_

_Rhodey flinched at Darcy’s rage directed at him. In hindsight, he did not handle that well, but the military wanted to keep Tony’s disappearance under wraps as long as possible and though Tony and Darcy were family, he was military. He was conditioned to follow orders. He gave Tony the finger in response to the man’s smug look._

_“ – but now those same reporters are telling the world my dad is Iron Man! Jesus Christ, Dad, do you not know the first thing about being a superhero? It’s Fight Club! You don’t fucking talk about it!”_

_“Darcy –“_

_“Do you know how many people are going to come after you? EVERYONE wants that tech! They don’t care what happens to you! They want the suit! They’ll do whatever it takes to get it! And you're taunting them! You are the equivalent of a bratty kid holding a kid’s toy out of reach! Well guess what? That kid’s gonna grow up and he’s going to remember the asshole bully who made his life hell!”_

_“You just summarized a milk commercial from the 80s.”_

_“Dammit Dad!”_

_Tony sighed. He didn’t plan on outing himself at the conference. He read through the cards Agent gave him, started reading from them in front of the cameras. OK, so he didn’t get to play hero. Fine. Real heroes didn’t brag about the heroic shit they did. He could be humble and fuck anyone who thought otherwise. But Christine was there, front and center, looking like the damn cat that swallowed the canary and he wanted to wipe that smug smile from her face. He barely remembered his night with her. What did that say about her skills in bed?_

_“I didn’t mean to upset you.” He knew she was rolling her eyes. His girl was a champion eye-roller. “Baby girl, it was impulse. I didn’t mean to do it.”_

_“You said the same thing when you blew up my third grade science project!”_

_She was never going to let that go, but in his defense, she **had** taken the easy way out, building a volcano with baking powder-induced lava. She was better than that. He knew it and she knew it, but when he tried to get her to make something else, she shut him down. Damn stubborn Stark genes. There was going to be a science fair. Everyone who entered something got a ribbon. The top three experiments got trophies. His daughter was better than some stupid participation ribbon. She was a trophy. If she wasn’t going to change her project, he’d make it better. He’d make sure those judges never looked at an elementary school science fair project volcano the same way ever again._

_It took another sizable donation – this time to the school’s art program (not that it did much good; his little girl had zero artistic talent) – to keep Darcy from getting expelled. He also had to pay for the damages caused by the automatic sprinklers when Darcy’s erupting volcano not only spewed her pasta sauce lava three feet in the air, but a high-flying fireball as well._

_(So he was tired when he mixed the chemicals; sue him. Oh yeah; a few people did. Fucking vultures. Tony was more upset that Darcy was blacklisted from the birthday party circuit for the remainder of the school year. He fixed that with an epic end-of-the-year field trip to the water park for the entire school – except the little brats who snubbed his Darcy. Well, that has been his plan until the principal told him she’d cancel the field trip if it wasn’t inclusive. Had Darcy not been looking forward to it, he would have told Dr. Lauran to eighty-six the trip.)_

_“Darcy,” Tony lowered his voice as he walked off the elevator to his private office, shutting the door behind him. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. You’re right; it was stupid.”_

_“It was more than stupid,” she muttered._

_“It was egotistical.”_ _He knew her silence meant she didn’t disagree._ _“I was rash and brash and –“_

 _“You were Tony Stark.” She said it with exasperation, but amused exasperation. She was used to his fuck ups. She knew his heart was in the right place even if his mouth or his actions weren’t. He needed her to know that what he did, building the suit, becoming Iron Man, wasn’t for his own amusement, but her protection. The world was fucked up. He had no idea how fucked up it had become. His weapons contributed to that. He needed to fix things. He needed to make it right. He needed to make the world better for his daughter._ _“Dad, you have to be careful,” Darcy urged. “You think you’re untouchable, but you’re not._ _Obadiah was a friend.”_

_Tony poured himself a drink. “He’s dead now.”_

_“Yeah, but Dad –“_

_He swallowed the two fingers of scotch and poured another. “He’s dead, Darcy. Drop it.” He was rarely so harsh with her, but Obadiah’s betrayal was still fresh. He’d worked with that man. Trusted him. Hell, Darcy had stayed at his house! He trusted him with Darcy! Did he tell anyone who she was? “I know what I’m doing. I promise you, I’ll be safe.”_

_She laughed then. She knew he believed it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. “Just don’t do anything stupid. Or at least give me a heads up before you do so I can try and talk you out of it.”_

_“I promise, baby girl.”_

_He broke that promise when he didn’t tell her the palladium core of his arc reactor was poisoning him. He did it again when he kept quiet about SHIELD. He broke it when he flew the nuclear missile through the wormhole. He broke his promise to Darcy over and over until he finally broke her._

_“Go ahead and destroy yourself if you think you have to, Dad,” she said the last time she saw him. “That doesn’t mean I have to sit around and watch.”_

* * *

“I am Iron Man?” Darcy looked up from the Youtube video playing on her StarkPad with a laugh. “Seriously? My God, Dad, you are such a drama queen!”

Tony’s chuckle in response was half-hearted. He hadn’t wanted her to watch the video of the press conference. It was the beginning of the end of his relationship with Darcy. Years of lies and secrets and half-truths followed. Tony sighed as Pepper brought up another video, this one of the Stark Expo. Would this one be the one that set her off? She had listened to him talk about Afghanistan with a blank expression on her face; though her grip on his hand grew tighter the longer he spoke. She didn’t let go as she watched the news coverage of his kidnapping and eventual return. She listened as he explained how he escaped, how he decided to build the suit to make up for the destruction his other weapons had caused. He wanted her to understand. Maybe this time around she would. She had to. He couldn’t lose her again. The first time nearly killed him.

He knew he had to tell her the truth. All of it. He didn’t want to, but even he wasn’t so selfish to use his daughter’s amnesia to his advantage. He knew Darcy was frustrated with the situation. She was doing a fair job of pretending she was fine, but he saw the questions she’d jotted in one of Steve’s sketchbooks. She wanted to know more about Iron Man, about the Avengers. She wanted to know why she was in New York and not California. She wanted to know when she met Captain America and Bucky Barnes, and what he thought of their relationship. She wanted to know why Pepper was wearing an engagement ring and Rhodey changed the subject every time Obadiah’s name was mentioned. She wanted to know why he had yet to visit her.

_“There’s no right way or wrong way to help Darcy fill in the blanks,” Dr. Sampson explained. “I’ve found that most amnesiacs have a smoother recovery when it’s at their pace.”_

_“What does that mean exactly?” Steve asked._

_“She calls the shots,” Dr. Sampson clarified. “Let her ask the questions, not you. Let her decide what’s important, not you.”_

_“We don’t know what happened to her,” Steve protested._

_“You may never know,” Dr. Sampson told him. “I’m sorry, but the fact that her mind has decided to forget everything that happened just before her father’s kidnapping is significant. It’s protecting her and we might not ever find out from what. To push her, to ask questions she doesn’t want to answer, could have the opposite effect."_

_Steve looked like he wanted to protest, but James’ hand on his arm stopped him. Tony watched as the two men exchanged a look, the blond man eventually nodding. He placed his hand over James’, squeezing once before turning to Dr. Sampson. “We’ll do it. Whatever Darcy wants, we’ll do it.”_

_Tony left the room. Darcy was asleep. She would be for hours. Steve said she had a nightmare, but he didn’t know what it was about. Whatever it was, it kept her from going back to sleep until the sun was in the sky and her room was bathed in light. Tony punched the button on the elevator before turning impatiently for the stairwell. She had woken from a nightmare and they were there. Them. Steve and James. Not him. Never him. She stopped needing him a long time ago._

“Dad?”

Tony shook himself out of his reverie. “What you need, baby girl?”

Darcy pushed away the tablet. She was wearing black yoga pants and a blue T-shirt with that stupid plaid shirt. He knew it was Steve’s. He’d seen Captain Perfect wear it before Darcy updated his wardrobe. At least he assumed that’s what happened when Steve stopped showing up to SHIELD briefings looking like a _Newsies_ reject. “Who was responsible for your kidnapping?”

Pepper excused herself, telling everyone she’d be back with food. “Real food,” she said with a smile at Darcy.

“We’ll help you.” Steve got up, gesturing for James to do the same. The sniper looked like he wanted to protest – he rarely left Darcy’s room, trusting only Steve to keep an eye on her when he could not – but this time it was Steve’s look that made him concede. The three left quietly, James pulling the door closed behind him. Tony swallowed as he looked at his daughter. Christ, the sex talk had been easier than this! “Darcy …”

“It wasn’t terrorists, was it?” she asked with a careless wave of her hand at the tablet still showing news clips. “It was something else.”

He thought he was over the anger of Obadiah’s betrayal. He spent months going through the man’s files, searching for anything that identified Darcy as his daughter. He was a man obsessed. He told Pepper and Rhodey it was cathartic.

He was full of shit.

“Obadiah hasn’t visited. He hasn’t even called.” She watched him carefully. He schooled his face to show indifference. He wasn’t going to get upset. He wasn’t going to upset Darcy. “He did it, didn’t he?”

“I always said you were too smart for political science.”

She responded by hurling the tablet at the wall, shattering it. “That fucker!” she yelled. “You trusted him! I trusted him!” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. Tony placed his hand on her leg, not quite sure what to do next. Darcy didn’t have that problem. “I want to kill him,” she said slowly, deliberately. “Where the fuck is he so I can hurt him?”

Tony wondered if she still carried the taser he gave her when she insisted on going to Bumfuck New Mexico to look at the stars with Dr. Jane Foster. He knew it took down Thor. The demigod was fond of that story. Tony wished she’d had the chance to do the same to Obadiah Stane.

“He’s dead.”

Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Damn. I really wanted to hurt him.” Tony understood how she felt. You didn’t mess with the Starks. If you did, they took care of it. Personally. She looked up, her expression still intense as she gripped Tony’s hands in hers. “Did it hurt?”

“As much as it could and more.”

She smiled. “Good,” she said before throwing her arms around him, hugging him tight. “I’m glad you’re too stubborn to die, Dad. But you’re an idiot for telling the world you’re Iron Man – the first rule of being a superhero is not to tell everyone you’re a superhero! Don’t you remember _Fight Club_?”

He swallowed the lump in his throat, returning Darcy’s hug with as much ferocity. “You said that last time,” he murmured as he pulled her into his lap. She burrowed closer, her head tucked under his chin.

“Did I give you a hard time about the suit’s colors? ‘Cause there’s flashy and then there’s ostentatious.”

He kissed the top of her head. “No, you didn’t.”

“Huh. Guess I was being nice.”

“Liar,” he rubbed his cheek against her hair. She always had too much hair. Even as a baby, her hair grew at an insanely fast pace. It took him forever to learn how to take care of it. An advanced degree in engineering meant nothing when your daughter demanded a French braid. “You like ostentatious.”

“I like you,” she gave him a squeeze. “I had no choice but to like ostentatious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Darcy as father-daughter gives me so many feels!
> 
> Two things.
> 
> 1\. Darcy couldn't stand by and watch her dad put himself in danger again and again. Yes, the fact that she chooses to be with two men who also do that will be addressed. Eventually. I imagine that pisses Tony off that she couldn't handle it with him, but can with them. He chooses to forget he lied to her over and over because he's Tony. He has selective memory when it works for him.
> 
> 2\. I'm totally making up the whole amnesia treatment part of this story. I figure none of you really care about that, but I wanted to have a disclaimer that any knowledge I have on the topic comes from watching General Hospital when I was in college. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ready to read more about how Steve and Darcy became Steve and Darcy? I am!
> 
> (This is a long chapter 'cause Steve likes to make speeches.)

“No.” Steve’s tone was flat, leaving no room for debate. It was his Captain America voice, his commander of The Avengers voice. No one argued with it. Or rather they tried to, but it never did much good.

Natasha Romanov’s expression didn’t change. Steve glanced at James, hoping he would see something in her stance that would give them an advantage, but his face was just as blank as hers. This wasn’t the first standoff between the two assassins and it wouldn’t be the last, but Steve wasn’t in the mood to deal with it. This was supposed to be a good day. They were releasing Darcy. She was going to leave the medical bay and move into the bedroom Pepper readied for her in the Penthouse. Steve was thrilled for the change – it had to be a sign of progress – though he wished Darcy was moving into his and Bucky’s apartment on the 47th floor instead. They rarely used it, preferring the apartment they shared with Darcy in Brooklyn instead, but as long as she remained under the tower’s roof, they would, too.

“Darcy isn’t one of Hydra’s tools,” he told Natasha.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

The slight lift of Natasha’s left eyebrow told Steve she thought he was being stubborn, that this was the same argument he made when she insisted James undergo extensive analysis before he moved in with Steve. He refused, not wanting to put his best friend through anything that could do damage to his already-fragile psyche. He didn’t want to think of James as Hydra’s trigger. He was prepared to fight for James’ well-being, to protect his friend the way he didn’t on the train, but James stopped him. He agreed to the testing, telling Steve he wouldn’t leave with him until he knew he was no longer a threat. It pained him to do so, but Steve stepped aside.

“Darcy isn’t Bucky,” he argued. “Those bastards had him for decades. They ripped away every part that was James Barnes time and time again!”

“She was gone for four weeks.”

“Twenty-six days,” Steve corrected.

“Fine,” Natasha conceded. “That doesn’t mean she’s not a liability.”

He knew that. He chose to ignore it. “We don’t know it was Hydra that took her.” His list of enemies was long. So was James’. So was Tony’s. The bullseye on Darcy’s back was huge.

“We don’t know it wasn’t,” she replied in a low tone, her eyes sweeping the empty hall outside of Darcy’s room.

Steve ran his fingers through his hair. He hated this. He hated listening to Darcy cry in her sleep, the horrors she refused to talk about jerking her from sleep. She held on to him at night, finding solace with him and James, falling asleep only when her room was bathed in sunlight. When she woke a few hours later, it was like the night never happened. She was back to giving them cautious smiles, glancing at them ever so often, but making no move to learn more about what they were to each other.

“She’s not Hydra,” James interjected. “She’s not going through a trigger screening.”

Natasha opened her mouth to argue. Steve glanced behind him at Darcy’s closed door. She was in there, probably laughing over some video of Iron Man’s antics. She was an innocent. He knew that. He couldn’t explain how he knew it, but he did.

“What about the bracelet?” Sam spoke up for the first time since being dragged into the hallway with the others. He tried to bow out, but none of them would allow it.

James had passed SHIELD’s examinations. Steve wasn’t allowed to view the process and James said he wouldn’t let him even if he had clearance. Still, the organization wasn’t ready to let the former Winter Soldier go. Steve argued they didn’t have jurisdiction over him or James. Acting Director Coulson said James’ presence put Darcy in danger. It was a low blow. Coulson knew it and Steve knew it, but it was enough to consider the alternative SHIELD’s scientists proposed: a bracelet. It was made of dull silver and absolutely mundane in appearance, but its technology was state-of-the art. Steve didn’t understand how it worked, but Drs. Fitz and Simmons assured him that it would incapacitate James if the Soldier ever took over, saving him and others from harm. At the same time, it would allow James to defend himself should he be attacked by Hydra or others.

_“So he’s Spike,” Darcy pronounced after Steve explained it to her._

_Steve skipped through his mental file of every name Darcy uttered in his presence, both real and those found in pop culture. “Vampire?” he guessed._

_She beamed and leaned forward to plant a kiss on his lips, not caring that the cartons of Chinese food littering her bed teetered precariously. “Exactly.” She fished an eggroll out of the white box balanced on her knee, chewing around it as she recapped the series she made him binge-watch – after explaining what binge-watch meant. “Buffy, season 4. The Initiative planted a chip in Spike’s brain that made him feel intense pain when he tried to hurt an innocent. He later learned he could still fight demons, which is why he became a pseudo good guy. He likes fighting.”_

_Only Darcy would liken the Winter Soldier to a fictional TV character. Steve knew he was smiling at her in that way that made her blush and roll her eyes. He couldn’t help it; she’s adorable – even when talking around a mouthful of shrimp. “What do you think I should do?” he asked, batting away the wadded up napkin she tossed at his face._

_“I think you should ask James what he wants to do.”_

_James chose the bracelet. “You don’t know what I’ve done, Stevie. I hope you never do. If wearing this is gonna protect you from me, I’ll do it.”_

He wore it for six months before Drs. Fitz and Simmons contacted them with requests to analyze and upgrade the tech. Coulson entered the lab before they finished, telling Steve and James SHIELD was satisfied with the report. James was free to go without further surveillance.

Steve nudged James. “You wore it. Did it hurt you?” James shook his head, his lips curved slightly in amusement. Steve ignored the look. It meant James thought he was mother-henning him again. Steve turned to Natasha. “We’ll ask Darcy. She has to agree to it.”

Natasha tilted her head in acceptance.

“You know Stark is gonna want to take a look at it,” James cautioned.

Natasha reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out a slim box. She passed it to Sam. He popped the lid. “It’s a slimmer model than what James wore; more feminine in design, but it will do the job. Fitzsimmons will answer any questions Tony has. They’re dying to, actually,” she said before turning to leave.

* * *

James was right. The second Darcy was settled in her bedroom, Tony was in his workshop, running tests on the bracelet. James went with him, a decision neither man was particularly in favor of, but his personal experience trumped Tony’s dislike. Pepper excused herself, citing a teleconference that couldn’t be avoided, but the gentle smile she gave Steve as she exited the bedroom made him realize it was her way of giving him time with his girl – if she wanted it. He hovered in the doorway, wishing he had the confidence to plop in the armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window like he used to. He spent hours in Darcy’s company that way, reading or sketching while she read a book, listened to music or slept. Sleeping was one of her favorite things to do. He wondered if that’s what she wanted now. She was sitting on the bed, Beary in her lap, her fingers fidgeting with his worn ears as her eyes took in her new surroundings. He and James had moved some of her things from their apartment to the Penthouse – clothes, favorite books, random knickknacks and framed photos – but the shabby stuffed animal was the only thing she recognized. She leaned over and picked a photo off the nightstand.

“I can’t believe I interned for an astrophysicist,” she mused, running her index finger over the image of her and Jane in the desert. “I probably did it because it annoyed my dad.”

“Was that something you did often?” Steve was curious. Tony was rarely a topic of conversation before.

Darcy shrugged and picked up another picture. This one was of her with Steve and James at Central Park, their three heads crowded together as they laid on their backs in the green grass. Steve remembered that afternoon. They had gone to fly kites because Darcy learned during a screening of _Mary Poppins_ that neither one ever had. She was big on giving them the childhood experiences poverty denied them. It wasn’t a windy day, though, so after thirty minutes of Darcy yelling at them to run faster, she admitted defeat and flopped to the ground to partake in another beloved pastime: cloud watching.

“So weird,” she murmured.

“What is?”

“This,” she replied, still looking at the picture. “I’m supposed to be 26, but I feel 18. I know I’m not because they finally gave me a mirror which, thankfully, did not break upon me looking in it.”

“You’re gorgeous, sweetheart.”

Darcy shrugged again. She had never been comfortable with compliments about her looks. Her brains? Yes. Her skills as a mechanic? No question. Her ability to kick ass at any video game? Bow to the master.

“I can leave if you want me to,” Steve offered.

Darcy put the photo down. “I don’t know what I want,” she confessed. “There’s so much I want to know that I don’t want anyone to go anywhere until every question is answered …”

“But?” Steve prompted.

Darcy hugged Beary to her chest. It was a familiar gesture. It meant she was going to admit something she’d rather keep inside. “But what if there’s a reason I can’t remember? What happened to me? I know everyone wants to know, but what if … what if when we find out, no one looks at me anymore? Right now, everyone cares – my dad, Pepper, Rhodey … you. I don’t remember you, but I know you care about me." She pushed herself off the bed and paced the room. "This whole thing fucking sucks! I want to remember, but what if I’m making myself forget because I did something terrible? I’m talking worst thing ever, OK? What if I remember and it changes how you feel about me?”

* * *

Steve had that same fear once. When he met Darcy, Captain America was the last thing on his mind. It wasn’t often he had the opportunity to be himself and only himself. He liked it. When she asked him what he did for a living, he said he was in security and left it at that. She didn’t push. Their first date was filled with the usual getting-to-know-you questions. If she noticed he changed the subject whenever it got too close to something he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) discuss, she didn’t say anything. He didn’t press her when she avoided questions about her family for the same reason.

The conversation during their second date was less Q & A. It should have made him happy, but instead he felt guilty. He liked Darcy. Spending time with her was easily the highlight of the brand new world he found himself living in. He didn’t want it to end, but worried telling her who he really was would chase her away. That, or she’d think he was insane. Either way, she wouldn’t be with him now, ducking French fries in mayonnaise and stealing spoonfuls of his chocolate malt.

He didn’t know about the third date rule. It didn’t exist in his time, so when Darcy asked if he wanted to order pizza and watch _The Godfather_ trilogy at her place, he agreed. Finally he had an actual excuse when he turned down Natasha’s attempts to set him up, though he didn’t think one night was long enough to watch all three movies.

_“O Captain! My Captain!” Clint groaned, ignoring the sharp elbow Natasha jabbed in his side._

_“What?”_

_“You’re not going to watch the movies.”_

_Steve adjusted his shield on his back. “I’m not?”_

_Clint shook his head. “This is your third date with this girl, right?”_

_Steve nodded._

_“Right. So I don’t know how it worked in your day, but the third date in this time period means sex.”_

_Steve paused in strapping his gun to his leg. Thank God he had the safety on. “Excuse me?”_

_“It’s the third date rule, Cap. Look it up. Wait, no, don’t do that. You aren’t ready for that. Just trust me on this.”_

_He jumped out of the plane before Steve could question him further. By the time they returned from their mission and fnished debriefing, he was barely able to shower and shave before going to Darcy’s. She answered the door wearing green and white flannel pajama bottoms and a long-sleeved green T-shirt. Steve decided Clint was full of shit. This was something a woman wore when she wanted to relax. Seduction was not part of the night’s activities._ _Darcy in his lap twenty minutes after the movie started, her lips on his as nimble fingers wrestled with the buttons of his shirt, proved him wrong. He barely managed to keep it together long enough to carry her to her bedroom. Later, when she was pressed to his side, her head on his chest as she fiddled with his dog tags, his own hands drawing lazy circles on her skin, she asked how long he was going to keep pretending he wasn’t Captain America._

_His froze. “What?”_

_She pushed herself up so she could look at him, her hair falling over her shoulders like a chocolate waterfall. Steve told himself to memorize this moment – how she looked, how she smelled, how she felt – because it was going to end soon. “I understand it’s not something you shout from the rooftops, but I don’t want you to think me knowing the truth was gonna change things.” She sat up fully, her face anxious as she studied him. “Did I fuck this up, letting you know I know too soon?”_

_He pushed himself to a sitting position, his back against the bed’s headboard. He was relieved and confused. And a little suspicious. "How long have you known?”_

_“Since the beginning?” she hedged guiltily._

_Now he was even more suspicious. Was she a spy? "How?”_

_She gave a little laugh. “OK, so, um, you’re not the only one with a secret,” she said nervously. Steve felt his shoulders tense. “Jarvis told me.”_

_“Jarvis?”_

_She nodded._

_He was still tense, but for a completely different reason. "And you have conversations with Tony Stark’s AI because …”_

_“’Cause he’s my dad?” she finished uncertainly. “Tony, I mean. Not Jarvis. That’d be weird. Even for the Starks.”_

_Steve closed his eyes. He’d just had sex with Tony Stark’s daughter. No, he just **fucked** Tony Stark’s daughter. Sex was what he planned to do when he carried her into her bedroom, but then she’d taken off her top and bottoms to reveal the sexiest pair of lace underwear he’d ever seen and something snapped inside him. He dove onto her without thought, lips sucking and biting at her soft skin. He touched her everywhere, reveling in her small gasps and sharp cries. He pulled her panties off with his teeth, shouldering his way between her thighs still fully dressed, desperate to taste her, determined to make her scream. _

_Darcy being a spy would have been the better scenario._

_“Before you get all guilty spiral of despair on me, don’t, OK? I don’t talk to my dad. He doesn’t know about you and me and this,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the space between their still-naked bodies. “Even if he did, it wouldn’t change anything.”_

_Steve shook his head, still trying to understand the words coming out of Darcy’s mouth. Tony Stark’s daughter! What the hell were the fucking odds? Jesus Christ, if Bucky were still alive, he’d be rolling on the floor. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”_

_She pulled the sheet over her chest, tucking it under her arms as she got off the bed. “You don’t have to say anything, Steve. We can keep seeing each other, which I’m in favor of because I was into you before I knew what a super soldier was like in bed, or you can go. I won’t blame you if you do. I’ll be pissed and the spectacular sex I just spoke of will be ridiculed at my next girl’s night and they'll buy me drinks because I'm so pathetic, but don’t let that influence your decision.” He watched as she took a blue fleece robe with yellow ducks on it from her closet. She turned her back to him as she pulled it on, the expanse of pale skin taunting him. She turned, tightening the belt around her waist as she gave him an awkward smile. “There’s probably a million other ways I could’ve handled this, but I don’t like lying.”_

_“I didn’t lie to you.”_

_“And I didn’t lie to you, but neither one of us was 100 percent truthful, either.” She grabbed an elastic from the dresser and pulled her hair into a messy bun at the top of her head. “I let the stars and stripes elephant in the room slide at first because I didn’t think it was worth it to blow your cover for nothing. You probably don’t get to be just Steve all that often, right? I figured I’d play along, let you be Joe Schmo for a bit and that’d be it, but it turns out Steve Rogers is kind of awesome. I want to spend more time with him. If that means I’ve got to put up with Captain America and all his Star-Spangled Glory, so be it.”_

_He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. On one hand, she didn’t care that he was Captain America. On the other hand, Tony Fucking Stark. “Your dad will kill me.”_

_Her laugh was bitter. “Believe me, that man forfeited his right to pass judgment on any part of my life a long time ago.”_

_Steve dropped his hand. He wasn’t overly fond of the younger Stark, but he couldn’t imagine anyone doing something so terrible, it drove their child away. “You really don’t talk?”_

_She shook her head. Steve slumped against the bed with a sigh. This was insane. He knew that. Dating Darcy Lewis was just asking for trouble, bright red flag in front of the bull trouble._

_Bucky always said Steve attracted trouble like a magnet._

_“If we do this, I’m not gonna keep you a secret,” he warned. “I don’t like lying either.”_

_She walked back to the bed, taking a cautious seat on the mattress just out of arm’s reach. “You do what you’ve got to do. Just know that when it comes to Tony, I want no part of it. In fact, I want no part of anything you do as Captain America. I want Steve. Just Steve.”_

_She might not want Cap, but Steve wasn’t against using his skills to get what he wanted, specifically super speed and super strength that had Darcy naked and underneath him in seconds. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”_

_She smiled at him, a **real** smile this time, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Good. Me, neither.”_

_He leaned down to kiss her, stopping a hair’s breath away from her lips. “Any more secrets?”_

_She shook her head. “You?”_

_“No.”_

_“So we agree? No lying? Ever?”_

_“I promise.” He ducked his head and nuzzled her neck. “Wanna shake on it?”_

_She pushed at his shoulders until he rolled to his back. She climbed on top of him, her thighs straddling his hips. “Sure,” she laughed. “I’ll go first.”_

* * *

Steve sat on the foot of Darcy’s bed, fighting the urge to pick her up, hold her close and never let go. Theirs had always been a physical relationship and not just sex (though Steve had no complaints). Darcy used to say it was because they were touch-starved, James’ only physical contact for decades filled with violence while Steve’s was a mix of fighting and medical. “That’s not going to happen,” he promised in a voice thick with emotion, praying his words would touch something in her. “There’s nothing you could do that would change the way I look at you.”

She gave him a sad grin. “It’s easy to say that now.”

Fuck it. He took her hands in both of his, tugging gently until she was sitting beside him. “We don’t lie to each other, Darcy. It’s a promise we made early in our relationship. It’s a promise I’ve never broken and will never break. When I tell you something isn’t going to happen, I’m not saying it to be nice or give you comfort. I say it because it’s the truth.”

She watched him for a second, her hands limp before he felt her lace her fingers through his. “OK,” she said. “No lies.”

“No lies,” he repeated.

She scooted back on the bed, pulling on his hands until he was beside her, leaning against the headboard. “So,” she said briskly, nudging his leg with hers. “Tell me how I found out you were Captain America.”

Steve started laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one has commented on the fact that while Steve and James both acknowledged more than friend feelings for each other in previous chapters/flashbacks, they weren't a couple in the past. (Maybe I was being too subtle?) Darcy still isn't sure if they're together-together, or just with her. Time to clear that up, don't you think?
> 
> James has the next chapter!
> 
> If you have a question I haven't answered yet, let me know!


	8. Chapter 8

He couldn’t sleep. James couldn’t remember his sleeping patterns as the Winter Soldier, but he doubted Hydra tucked him into bed after a mission. He snorted at the absurdity of the image. He’d tell Steve, but he didn’t want to see that look, a combination of anger and guilt, cross his face. It happened every time James made a reference to his past, even sarcastically. Darcy would appreciate it, though.

Darcy. She was the reason he was sprawled on the sofa in the living room of his and Steve’s suite at the tower, flicking absently through the hundreds of TV channels, unable to find anything to occupy his mind. His bastardized solution of Erskine’s serum did not make sleep a priority and night terrors took care of the rest. If and when his body demanded respite, he made do with naps, grabbing an hour or two when he felt it was safe to close his eyes. Steve understood and left James to his own devices. Darcy did not, pulling him from wherever he decided to catch some zzz’s – the sofa, the leather armchair in the corner of the living room, a stool at the breakfast bar – and dragging him to the bedroom. She’d pull the covers back and wait impatiently with her hands on her hips, her left foot tapping incessantly, until he toed off his boots and got into the bed.

_“If you’re going to nap, do it right,” she’d fuss, pulling the covers up to his chin, her hands soothing away the hair from his eyes. Sometimes she’d perch on the edge of the mattress, stroking his forehead until his eyes fluttered shut. Other times she’d settle beside him with a book or her phone, refusing to go or let him leave until she felt he rested enough – even if he never actually slept._

_That was Darcy. For so long Steve treated him like he was made of glass, afraid to say or do anything that might make him rabbit. The rest of his team wasn’t much better. Natasha didn’t trust him (he didn’t trust her, so that put them on equal footing) and Clint followed Natasha’s lead. Tony avoided Steve and anyone associated with him as much as possible, Bruce shunned anything that was stressful (and a recovering amnesiac assassin was at the top of the list), and Thor was off planet more than he was on. Sam was James’ only other ally, not that he cared one way or the other. He came back for Steve and only Steve._

_That was before he met Darcy._

_She was the only one to treat him like a person; not a victim, not a killer – a person. She swept in without fear (which, looking back, he severely questioned), catching him up on modern-day non-assassinating life. She dragged him to stores to update his wardrobe, battered him about his hair until he agreed to a haircut (she found a barber who was a Desert Storm vet; he understood James’ need to be in an open chair with no arms facing all exits), and forced food on him until his face lost the “kicked puppy” look. When Steve hovered too close, she told him to back off. When Sam’s questions were too much, she made an excuse to spring James early and they’d spend the rest of the afternoon playing hooky._

_He slowly began to improve, remembering more of his past and less of the Soldier’s. Steve started going on missions, short assignments that had him gone and back within 24 hours. Darcy checked in on him in Steve’s absence, showing up with takeout (she had a key to Steve’s apartment but never used it, telling James if he **really** didn’t want her there, she’d leave) or a bag of groceries. He liked it best when she cooked. She'd make a mess of the kitchen, a mess she expected him to clean up, but it was worth it._

“How long have you been up?”

James looked over as Steve shuffled into the room, eyes half-shut. He lifted his legs, a silent invitation for Steve to join him on the couch. The blond plopped down unceremoniously. James rested his feet on Steve's thighs. “Haven’t slept yet.”

Steve palmed James’ feet in his hands, rubbing the soles absently as he stared at the television screen. James had stopped at an infomercial, the late-night reruns of television sitcoms bringing up memories of the all the series Darcy made both men watch. Jesus, would it ever be that simple again?

"Natasha said there's chatter about a new Hydra cell," Steve said after a few minutes.

"They mention Darcy?"

Steve shook his head. James turned his attention back to the television, no longer interested. Seeking and destroying Hydra was going to have to take a backseat for the time being. His focus was on Darcy. He knew, without discussing it, that Steve felt the same way. Unless Natasha's sources had any information about what happened to her, they were taking a time out from avenging.

The knock at the door a minute later was soft; too soft for anyone who wasn't a super soldier. Steve turned to James with a raised eyebrow. "No idea," he replied, lifting his feet so Steve could walk to the door.

“Sorry,” Darcy said as soon as Steve opened the door. “I assumed Jarvis told you I was on my way.”

Steve shook his head. They didn’t allow Jarvis regular access to their apartment, the AI only able to communicate with them in an emergency.

“You alright, doll?” James sat up, making room for Darcy as Steve ushered her into the room, his hand on her lower back. He led her to his abandoned seat before lowering himself in the adjacent armchair. Darcy brought her knees up to her chest and locked her arms around them, her eyes taking in the sparseness of their temporary home.

“We don’t live here,” Steve answered her unvoiced question. “Our place is in Brooklyn.”

“Our place.” She glanced at both men. “You mean you two … and me?”

Steve nodded. “We bought it about five months ago, after one too many arguments about storage space and shoes.”

Darcy’s cheeks pinked. “I’m a shoe addict?”

James raised his hand. “I am,” he confessed.

“Shoes, pants, shirts …” Steve teased. He gave James an indulgent smile, his penchant for shopping one of the first indications that he was on the mend.

Darcy ducked her head, a small smile on her lips. Both men were silent, cautious, as they watched her fiddle with the fabric pillings on her fuzzy socks. James knew about her earlier conversation with Steve, the way she had laughed when he told her she was the one who unmasked his secret identity, not the other way around. It seemed like a breakthrough, albeit a small one. Then Tony had barged in, Natasha on his heels. James listened as they explained the bracelet – its purpose, how it worked, why she had to wear it – and watched as she shut down, drawing into herself even as Steve and Tony tried to reassure her that she was fine, everything would be OK, it was just a precaution.

It dangled from her wrist, slimmer than the one he wore, the silver catching the light from the muted television. He rubbed his wrist subconsciously. “You had one?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he confirmed, not knowing how much she knew about him. “I had one.”

She twisted it around her wrist. The lost look was gone. He was grateful for that, but she still looked apprehensive. That he didn’t like. His Darcy was bold and pushy, with a confidence that bordered on reckless. She was so much like Steve, diving into situations without a metaphorical parachute. She took him back to her apartment that first night, _a known assassin_ , giving no thought to her personal safety as she ushered him into the bathroom. She left him standing by the tub as she turned on the water, pulling towels from the cupboard under the sink, promised to leave some of Steve’s clothes on the floor outside the bathroom as she left, pulling the door behind her. When he wandered down the hall a few minutes later in gray sweatpants and a blue T-shirt, she had soup on the stove and the makings of a roast beef sandwich on the counter.

_“Eat up – or not, if you’re not hungry. Are you tired? You can crash in the bedroom or on the couch; your call. Or I can turn on TV and we can veg until Steve gets here. Whatever you want to do, we’ll do.”_

_He stumbled over that, nearly dropping his spoon in the bowl of soup he was in the process of inhaling. Whatever he wanted to do? How long had it been since he had a choice? “Why are you doing this?” he asked. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know him before and she sure as hell didn’t know him now._

_She stopped and looked at him. It was an unfamiliar look. He struggled to find the right words to describe it. Sympathetic? Compassionate? “I’m so sorry you had to go through all that,” she whispered._

“I guess you kind of know what I’m going through, the whole not knowing thing,” she said now.

“Yeah,” he said. “You always told me it must suck.”

She snorted. “How benevolent of me.”

James smiled. He actually preferred Darcy’s laid-back approach to his history, almost as much as he learned to appreciate her avant-garde approach to his recovery. Somehow she managed to get through to him when no one else could, not even Steve. “You had your methods, doll. They helped.”

She turned so she was sitting sideway on the couch, her legs crossed in front of her. “So you can tell me when I’m messing up? Like I know everyone’s trying to help, to fill in the blanks without making it look like they want the same from me, and I get it, but sometimes I just want to shout ‘Enough!’, you know?”

Steve half chuckled and slouched in the armchair. James rolled his eyes. “More than you know, doll.”

“Thought so,” she mused. “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I know you all were worried, _still_ worried, but this whole ‘Tiptoe around Darcy so we don’t make it obvious she has no idea what’s happening’ plan everyone’s signed up for is annoying as fuck. ‘Cept I can’t say that because it will freak everyone out. Pepper will call Dr. Sampson and Dad will drink in his workshop and Steve will get that pained look I totally know he’s making right now,” she yammered, winking at James when he confirmed her suspicions with a subtle nod. “So I figured you could be my guide, the Mr. Miyagi to my Daniel-san, if you will.”

James had no idea what she was talking about. That wasn’t new, but in the past year, he was getting better as deciphering what Sam termed Darcy Speak. A quick glance at Steve showed him the other man was just as lost. “You’re going to have to clarify that one for us, doll.”

“For real?” she squealed. “It’s not like I know this for sure but I know me, or the me I was, and I’m willing to bet I spent a lot of time cramming pop culture down your throat.” She waited for James’ nod of ascent before peeking over her shoulder to see Steve do the same. “And somehow I left out _The Karate Kid_? Wax on, wax off? Catching flies with chopsticks? Mean-as-fuck karate instructor? Nothing?”

“We can watch it now,” Steve offered.

“Hell yeah, we’re watching it now,” Darcy replied. She scooted closer to James to make room for Steve as Jarvis cued the movie. For two hours, it was like nothing had changed. Darcy kept a running commentary throughout the film, pausing often to explain scenes or references in great detail. By the time the credits were rolling, she was slumped in her seat, her legs propped on the coffee table, her head heavy on James’ arm.

“You want us to take you back to your room?” Steve offered somewhat reluctantly.

Darcy shook her head. “OK if I crash here? I … I sleep better with you around.”

“You can stay as long as you want.” James wrapped his arm around Darcy, pulling her into his side while Steve picked her feet off the table and set them in his lap. It was a familiar setup for them. He could only hope it would strike some chord of familiarity in her.

“One more question,” she mumbled as she burrowed closer to James. “And remember I’m the amnesiac, so no judging, but it ours a boy-girl relationship or a _boys_ -girl relationship?”

_“It’s called polyamorous,” Darcy explained to the wide-eyed soldier. He still had water dribbling down his chin after spitting out a mouthful when Darcy asked if he had the hots for Steve. “Having multiple romantic and sexual partners at one time,” she continued, handing him a paper towel as if they were in the middle of a perfectly normal conversation. “But it’s committed,” she added. “It’s not a one-off sort of thing.”_

_James couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of Darcy’s mouth. And he really couldn’t believe Steve’s reaction to the words coming out of Darcy’s mouth, the other man smiling indulgently at the woman before sliding his hand across the kitchen table to link his fingers with hers. “You’re saying this is something you want to do? With me?”_

_She took his hand. “If you want to,” she said, her tone completely serious. “When we met, you called me Steve’s. I already knew you were his. I don’t want to stand in the way of that, but I sure as hell don’t want to back off ‘cause I’m kind of crazy about the guy.”_

_“And me?” James couldn’t help but ask._

_She squeezed his hand. “I care about you. With time, I’ll probably love you, especially if you keep slipping into that 40s jargon like you’ve been doin’. Only question is can you see yourself with us?”_

_James looked at Steve. How long has he wanted to kiss his friend, to show him how much he cared for him? Was it possible Steve felt the same way?_

_“Go on,” Darcy encouraged, letting go of both men’s hands and pushing away from the table. She got up and walked to the counter, hopping up so she was out of their way, but not out of their sight._

_This wasn’t something James should want. Forget that he was raised to believe it was wrong. What would kissing Steve accomplish? He’s with Darcy. He loved Darcy. James couldn’t fault him for that; he had a soft spot for the mouthy brunette, too. She told him they’d figure it out, but what did that mean? Even if they could, should they? He was dangerous! There were people looking for him, people who wanted to use him, to tap into the monster he was trying to forget. What is they found out about Steve? Darcy? He didn’t care about what could happen to him. He was terrified of what could happen to them._

_Yet when Steve moved in and pressed his lips to his, James didn’t pull away. Instead, he slid closer, his flesh hand coming up to cup Steve’s face. The blond groaned, opened his mouth under James’ and suddenly they were pressed against each other, both men giving and taking. James cradled Steve’s face in his hands, keeping him exactly where he wanted him. It’s a messy kiss, shared breaths and groans, lips bitten and sucked. He can’t stop. He won’t stop. Why the hell did they wait so long to do this?_

“We’re polyamorous,” James told Darcy. “You and Steve were together before I showed up.”

“And you two weren’t before …”

James shook his head. “Punk here said some things about me when you two started dating, hinted that he had wanted more back in the day. He didn’t know I was still alive, so when I showed up, you confronted him, told him life was short, he already lost so much, and that he had to stop worrying about what others thought and be happy.”

“No, she said I should be fucking happy,” Steve corrected as he rubbed his hands up and down Darcy’s calves. “You were supportive and a little frightening at the same time, sweetheart.”

She smiled at that. “Sounds like me,” she said softly, the room falling silent as three bodies shifted to find comfort before sleep. “Hey,” she whispered, tilting her head up to look at James, her face that same mix of sympathy and compassion she gave him long ago. “I’m so sorry you had to go through all that,” she whispered.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. “’M sorry you have to, too, doll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a great week everyone!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to look at things from Darcy's POV. Warning -- the first part of this chapter is NSFW.

_Water rained from the showerhead. Steam filled the bathroom. A large arm was bracketed around Darcy's waist, pulling her close to a muscled chest. She could feel him, all of him, so hard against her back. God, she wanted him inside her!_

_“Shhh,” he whispered against her ear before he nibbled on the lobe. “We have all day.”_

_The man kneeling at her feet obviously felt the same way as he slowly stroked her with his tongue, swallowing the moisture from the shower and her excitement without haste. Her feet were balanced on his strong thighs, his hands on her waist keeping her still as his licks drove her higher until her whimpers grew louder. Her pleas echoed in the small room. She linked one arm around the neck of the man behind other as the other scrambled for purchase in the wet hair of the man now nibbling on her clit, the small nub throbbing under his attention._

_“We’ve got you, Darcy.” Soft lips sucked at the side of her neck as the hands on her waist drifted around to cup her ass. She gasped as he pulled her closer to his mouth. It was too much and not enough! She was so close! She just needed – she squealed as a finger slid into her ass, shouting out as the unfamiliar sensation sent her tumbling into the abyss._

“Darcy!”

She sat up with a gasp, one hand clenched over her chest as the other shot out, gripping the arm of the man kneeling beside her.

“I’m here,” Steve murmured, pushing her damp hair away from her face. “Oh sweetheart, you’re burning up.”

She sucked in a deep breath, Steve’s voice pulling her from the dream that had her lady parts throbbing. She’d had steamy dreams before, but _that_ … Christ! “I’m OK,” she forced herself to say, inwardly wincing at the high pitch squeak of her voice.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked her that every time she woke from a dream. She always shook her head, the threads of her nightmares drifting away as soon as she opened her eyes, not that she made much of an effort to remember them. Not this time, though. She didn’t even have to close her eyes to recall how amazing the men in her dream felt pressed against her, hard where she was soft. “Darcy?” he repeated.

She had impulse issues. That wasn’t surprising; her father _was_ Tony Stark. And if Steve knew her as well as he claimed to, what happened next shouldn’t have caught him off guard, but apparently even a super soldier can stumble when the woman he was comforting one second throws herself at him the next.

“Oof!” he grunted as he stumbled, the momentum of Darcy launching herself off the couch and into his arms enough to have him falling back on the floor, his head slamming into the thankfully plush cream carpet as Darcy scrambled on top of him, her legs bracketing his waist as she pressed her lips to his, taking out all of the frustration of her dream (memory?) on the surprisingly compliant man beneath her. A less self-confident woman might have been concerned when the man she was kissing the living daylights out of didn’t respond, but confidence was never something Darcy lacked. She nibbled. She stroked. She ran the tip of her tongue along the seam of Steve’s mouth, mentally high fiving herself when he groaned, his arms branding her to him as he opened to her. Their tongues tangled together in a dance that felt achingly familiar and brand new all at once.

“I’m not doing that again and you can’t fucking make me,” James announced as he walked through the front door clutching a large paper bag in his metal fist. “I don’t care if the cashier flirts with you and it makes you uncomfortable; that crazy lady hates me! What I’d ever do to –“He stopped talking as he took in the two people entwined on the floor between the coffee table and the couch. “Yeah, I'm really not doing that again.”

Darcy’s head popped up. “James,” she pushed herself up to a sitting position, well aware that in doing so, the lower part of her body was pressed intimately against Steve. She tried to care, but found she really couldn’t. “I had a dream?”

“Mmm … If that’s your reaction to nightmares, doll, I’m gonna insist you stay with us from now on,” he smirked, offering a hand to Darcy.

She took it, somewhat reluctantly, her eyes centered on the gorgeous pile of man flushed and breathing heavily on the floor, but her stomach was distracted by the smell of the bag still in James’ hand. “Cinnamon sugar bagels?”

He kissed the tip of her nose and pressed the bag in her arms. “And strawberry cream cheese,” he confirmed, aiming another smirk in Steve’s direction after Darcy pressed her lips to his in a smacking kiss before detouring to the kitchen.

“I love bagels. I think that’s what I missed most when I went to Paris. I mean yeah, their pastries are _amazing_ and any country that thinks cheese is acceptable for breakfast, lunch and dinner is aces in my book, but nothing tops a New York bagel. Pepper used to have them shipped to me in Malibu. She wouldn’t do it for Dad, though, because then he’d never attend a shareholder’s meeting.” She stopped in the act of slicing bagels, the knife slipping out of her hands – James jumped forward to grab it before it landed on her foot – as she looked up. “I went to Paris,” she breathed, her eyes wide. “I attended Le Cordon Bleu. I remember! I turned down MIT for Culver, but decided to take a gap year and I went to Paris. I was having coffee with this guy from my class when I heard my dad’s name on the TV and …”

And that’s when she heard that he was missing. No, not missing; kidnapped. Maybe dead. The military motorcade in which he was traveling had been attacked. Everyone in his Humvee was killed.

“Darcy,” Steve grabbed her shoulders, shaking once to jar her from the darkness crowding her mind. “He’s fine! Baby, don’t go there; I promise he’s fine! Jarvis?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Status report on Tony.”

“Sir is having breakfast with Miss Potts.”

James looked up at the ceiling. “Isn’t he worried about Darcy?”

“I left a note,’’ Darcy said at the same time the AI replied “Miss Darcy left a note.”

“You see?” Steve cradled Darcy’s face in his hands. “Everything’s fine.”

She wanted to lean into him, to press against him and feel James at her back, to feel safe and protected between her soldiers, but there was something nagging at the back of her mind, like an itch she couldn’t reach. She remembered. She remembered how scared she was, seeing her father’s face on the TV screen with the word MISSING screaming at her. She ran away from the café, dialing Pepper as she raced to her flat, shoving past people in her haste to get home, to get to a place where she could lose it with the one person who’d understand what she was feeling.

Her dad had been kidnapped. She knew that. He told her. She watched the news coverage, she read the stories, but knowing and feeling it were two different things.

“I’ve got to go,” she pulled herself from Steve’s grasp. “I’ve got to …” She looked around the kitchen. What did she need? Did she bring anything with her? Did it matter? She needed to see her dad. She knew he was OK, but she needed to _see_ it.

“Here,” James pushed a bagel in her hand, an understanding look on his face. It calmed the thoughts racing through her mind. He knew. He’d been there. He understood. She trusted that he’d explain it to Steve. “Go see your dad. You’ll feel better.”

She nodded, going up on her toes to press a kiss on his cheek, repeating the gesture with Steve before she ran out the door.

* * *

 

Darcy loved watching her dad work. When she was little, she thought he was a magician, the way he could bring his ideas to life, to create something from nothing. As she grew older, his work lost some of its enchantment, but she still knew she was in the presence of something special when her dad was on the zone. That or explosions. She was pretty good at figuring out the difference and taking the appropriate actions.

She knew Tony had wanted her to follow in his footsteps. He never said so, but how else would you explain the purple toolbox he gave her on her fifth birthday, her very own set of purple and pink tools tucked inside, including a welder that Pepper quickly snatched away. Part of Darcy wishes she’d been able to realize her father’s dream, but the fact of the matter was she didn’t have his brilliance. She was smart -- she was smarter than smart – but whereas Tony created, she perfected. She appreciated brilliance, whether it was a top-of-the-line AI or a 1969 Lamborghini Miura P400S, and would do everything she could to keep that brilliance running the way it should -- which explained why she was under the hood of her father’s Audi R8 while he focused the intel Natasha Romanov dropped off, the redhead barely sparing her a glance.

“So …” Tony ducked his head under the hood, his hand reaching out to take the socket wrench from Darcy grasp. She elbowed him aside in a move he taught her. “Sneaking out to boys’ rooms, are we?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. There was tension between the three men. They tried to pretend there wasn’t, but she wasn’t stupid. An amnesiac? Yes. Stupid? No. “Please don’t ground me, Daddy – not so close to prom!” She laughed as he ruffled her hair, dancing away when he tried, again, to swipe the tool from her hand. Starks didn’t play well with others.

“Everything OK, baby girl?” Tony leaned against the car. “You feeling good? Sleeping alright? Are you comfortable?”

She pushed away from the car, jerking her head to signal to Tony to slide behind the driver’s seat. She listened as the engine purred, one finger up to keep him quiet as she leaned closer. Better. The miniscule clicking she heard earlier was gone. She snapped her fingers to signal it was OK to cut the engine, wiping her hands on the blue cloth tucked in the back pocket of her jeans before carefully closing the hood. “You used to take better care of your cars,” she teased, taking the tools back to the workbench, putting them in their proper places.

“My mechanic’s been indisposed,” Tony shot back.

Darcy leaned against the workbench. “Kidnapping jokes? Really?”

He shrugged and picked up his coffee cup, swallowing the liquid in three large gulps. “You had some zingers when I got back. Turnabout’s fair play, kiddo.”

Darcy boosted herself up on the bench, her short legs swinging back and forth. “About that … I remember.”

Tony carefully set the cup down on the edge of the bench. “Remember what, exactly?”

Darcy swallowed the lump in her throat. “You … missing. Um, I don’t know why exactly, but I was slicing a bagel and it just hit me, being in Paris when the news about your kidnapping broke and it felt ...” She took a deep breath. “It felt like it was happening all over again and there was nothing I could do, not then, not now.” She blinked back the tears as Tony rested his hand on her knee. “It _hurt_ , Dad!” She pressed her head against his. “I didn’t know I could hurt that much!”

He squeezed her leg, leaving a spot on engine grease on the dark denim. “We got through it, baby girl. We did it then, we’ll do it now.”

“But is it gonna feel like this? I _know_ the things I’m remembering, but now I’m feeling them too and I just … I don’t like it!”

Tony opened his mouth, but he was cut off by Jarvis announcing Captain Rogers’ arrival. Darcy jumped down from the workbench, her eyes on the man in dark jeans, a white T-shirt, brown boots and a brown leather jacket. He had a motorcycle helmet in one hand. “Tony,” he nodded at the man. “Darcy,” he said with more warmth.

“What are you doing here?” Father and daughter spoke as one, but their tones of voice were complete opposites. Darcy was happy to see him. Tony not so much.

“You mentioned wanting to see our place.” Steve held out the helmet. “I thought, if you weren’t busy, we could go for a ride.”

“Yeah?” Darcy bounced on her heels. She _loved_ motorcycles. She knew from the photographs Jarvis kept loading on her tablet that Steve’s was a classic. She couldn’t wait! She turned to Tony. “I’ll see you later?”

The dark haired man nodded. “Don’t do anything Pepper wouldn't let you do,” he told her, repeating the same phrase he uttered every time she left the house from age 13 on. She laughed and kissed him on the cheek, not noticing how his eyes narrowed when she took Steve’s hand, pulling him to the elevator without a backwards glance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a great week everyone!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Two chapters in one week? What sorcery is this?

Steve watched Darcy walk through the apartment with more care than she had since they moved in. She even toed off her low-heeled boots before she crossed the threshold, leaving them underneath the coat hook instead of in the middle of the floor for him to trip over.

“A lot of light,” she remarked, taking in the floor-to-ceiling wall of glass with views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines. It was the light that sold Steve on the place. James liked the location and Darcy fell in love with the lower level open floor concept that seamlessly combined the kitchen, living and dining room. She trailed her fingers along the granite breakfast bar, pausing in front of the built-in bookcases that housed her extensive cookbook collection.

“We turned one of the bedrooms into a studio slash library,” Steve told her. “You tried to get us to embrace eReaders …”

“No luck, huh?” She replied, balancing on her haunches to study the books on the lower shelves. They were organized in a manner that made no sense to Steve, but Darcy always seemed to find what she needed.

Steve chuckled as he knelt next to Darcy. “You lost the battle after James got a load of those.”

“A cookbook’s different!” Darcy protested. “You need to be able to see the entire recipe, make notes in the margins, or add comments when something does or doesn’t work!”

Steve stood, helping Darcy to her feet as he did. “You made that same argument last time.”

“Yeah? What happened?”

He led her up the stairs to the first bedroom, waving her inside. “Compromise number one.” It, too, was filled with natural light from the oversized window. Steve’s drafting board was situated in front of the clear glass. Bookshelves bracketed the room, the shelves crowded with everything from leather-bound classics to tattered paperbacks, and a multitude of framed pictures in various sizes. Two plush armchairs in navy blue fabric with gray and pale yellow throw pillows sat on the ivory and blue patterned area rug, a low coffee table in dark wood in front of them.

“Did you draw this?” Darcy picked up a framed ink sketch of the city’s skyline from the shelves. The shelves were cluttered with Steve’s work and photographs from Steve and James’ past that Darcy liberated from SHIELD’s archives. Steve never asked her how she accomplished it. She assured him it was better that way.

“Yeah,” he said, blushing a bit at the attention she was giving it. “It’s nothing, really. I was just messing around and –“

“It’s beautiful,” she told him, putting it back on the shelf before picking up a photo of him and James in their dress uniforms. “As is this,” she looked up at him with a grin. He could feel his cheeks flaming, especially when she noticed his embarrassment and got that look on her face that usually led to her pushing him against the nearest surface and kissing him until he was weak in the knees. God, he missed that. The way she threw herself at him that morning was a bitter reminder of how things used to be.

* * *

 

_“Stop it!”_

_Steve ducked James’ punch, his own jab blocked as the two men circled each other in the Avengers’ gym. “Stop what?”_

_“Stop looking at her like you did me!” James took advantage of Steve’s momentary distraction to flip the man onto his back. He planted his foot in the middle of Steve’s chest to keep him pinned down, digging in when Steve tried to push him off._

_He thumped back on the ground with a weary sigh. He should have known James’ eagerness to spar was more of an eagerness to kick his ass. “What’s that supposed to mean?”_

_James collapsed beside him, his chest heaving under his damp T-shirt. “It means you look guilty, like you’re blaming yourself for what happened and for not being able to fix it,” he said bluntly._

_“Bucky –“_

_“No,” he cut him off. “You don’t understand what she’s going through. I do.” He yanked at the elastic keeping his hair out of his face and scrubbed his fingers through his dark locks. “Look,” he started in a gentler tone, “it’s not easy, getting memories back. It’s like … I’d get bits and pieces of this picture, okay, but they were so jumbled and I was so fucked up, I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. And they kept coming, every day more, but none of ‘em were in focus, nothing made sense, and I couldn’t stop it! It took everything I had to pick one fragment from the mess, a splinter I could focus on until I was strong enough to look for another. I’d do that for hours, days, until I had enough to make a picture, enough to ask you if it was a memory. I never knew if it would be good or bad, something from our past, or something Hydra did to me – or made me do to someone else.”_

_He got up and paced around the floor, his fists clenched, jaw tight as if struggling to get the words out. “I know what I did. I read my file. Thought it’d help, but knowing and **knowing** are different. The clearer things got, the more they hurt. People who had been gone for decades … it was like I just lost them. The people I hurt … I could smell their death. It surrounded me. Things started coming into focus, the pictures were easier to put together.” He shook his head. “You were so happy I was remembering, like a little kid Christmas morning, and all I wanted to do was shut it down. Make the whole thing fucking stop because not knowing hurt less.”_

_Steve closed his eyes, remembering how hard it was to come clean on some of the horrors James had wrought as Hydra’s weapon, how James took each confirmation of a kill with stoic acceptance, the light that was there seconds before gone. Each time Steve wondered if this would be the memory that finally destroyed the man decades of abuse and torture could not._

_“Not your fault, punk,” James growled. “Wasn’t then, isn’t now.”_

_“Bucky –“_

_James knelt in front of Steve. “No!” He smacked Steve on the side of the head. “For once in your goddamn life, listen to me. What happened to me was not your fault. What happened to Darcy was not your fault. We need you to believe that. We need you to stop beating yourself up about shit you can’t control because those puppy eyes are only cute in the bedroom, got it?”_

_Steve pressed his forehead against James’, partly for the connection and partly because his head was still ringing. Why’d he always insist on hitting him with his left hand? “I just want to help,” he said after a minute._

_“You always do.” James kissed his nose before springing to his feet. He grabbed Steve by the hands and pulled him to his. “Even when it ends up kicking you in the ass.”_

_Steve rolled his eyes. “So tell me what to do, smartass.”_

_James ran his fingers through Steve’s hair. “Just be there for her. Knowing you were there kept me going when I didn’t think I could anymore. Hell, it kept me going when I didn’t want to anymore. You -- and Darcy -- made me believe I could get better, be whole again. You two were my light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t always see it, but I knew it was there.”_

_“Well hell, if it worked on a jerk like you, it’s sure to work on our girl.” Steve tossed James a water bottle. “You know, she used to yell at me for smothering you. She didn’t hit,” he stressed with a pointed look at James’ arm, “but she called me a mother hen a fair number of times. She’s great at stomping away.”_

_“Oh I know,” James grinned. “She’d show up out of nowhere, muttering something about you and undiagnosed head trauma, all piss and vinegar. Then we’d go do something not related to my recovery.”_

_Steve paused in guzzling water from the Wonder Woman water bottle Darcy gave him at Christmas. James had Supergirl. “Wait … that time you came home with that huge stuffed purple cow?”_

_“Carnival.”_

_“The kitten?”_

_“Found her at the park.”_

_“Darcy’s sprained ankle?”_

_“Rollerblading.”_

* * *

 

Steve ran the saucepan under the warm water to rinse away the suds. Darcy left him with dish duty after lunch, claiming she who cooks does not clean. Steve refrained from telling her that he already knew that. Hell, he mouthed it along with her, having been on the dishes end of dining with Darcy more times than he could count. Still, it was nice to pretend, just for a minute, that he was an ordinary guy doing the dishes on a nothing kind of day. He could imagine James sprawled on their L-shaped sofa, beer bottle in hand as he watched a ball game, still claiming he hated baseball despite always flipping to ESPN when it was his turn to control the remote. Darcy would either be curled up with him, asleep before the first inning was over.

Instead James was at target practice with Sam and Darcy was upstairs, allegedly going through her clothes to bring a few more things to the tower, but Steve knew better. She was poking around, trying to find something to spark a memory without an audience. He saw a flash of recognition when she peeked inside their bathroom, her eyes going wide at the glass-enclosed shower that spanned the width of the room, but then she turned away, claiming starvation as she practically ran to the kitchen.

“What’d my dad say when I told him about you?”

Steve finished drying the saucepan before he turned around. “Where’d that come from?”

She pushed an album across the countertop. He picked it up. _Darcy’s Excellent Adventures_ it announced in silver glitter on the bright red cover. He didn’t need to open it to know what he’d find inside: pictures of her and Jane and Dr. Selvig in New Mexico; the photo of Thor that made Coulson swipe her iPod; Darcy in London with Ian (she replaced it every time James removed it; they had no idea how many copies of that photo she owned); and another of Thor holding mew-mew out as Darcy attempted a chin up. There were photos of her at shop, of the cars she worked on, and images of girl’s nights at bars or concerts. Then there were pictures of him, of them, walking the boardwalk at Coney Island or drinking coffee on the steps of the Met. Soon James showed up, his face smashed between theirs on Jane’s Carousel at Brooklyn Bridge Park or the Staten Island Ferry.

“It’s pretty obvious these are people I care about, even the ones I don’t recognize,” she said, tapping a finger on the photo of James and Clint competing in a darts tournament. “Except my dad,” she continued, turning another page, “and Pepper – even Rhodey.” She closed the album. “Then there’s this place. I see you in here. I see James. I see whoever I turned out to be, but I don’t see who I was. There are more things from your time than mine and believe you me, I had stuff! One time, my dad upgraded my Easy-Bake Oven so that thing was spitting out cookies like you would not believe. There’s no way I wasn’t taking that with me to college! And dude, you think we have a lot of books now? My collection growing up was insane! Do you know how long the members of the Baby-Sitter’s Club stayed in eighth grade?” She shook her head at his blank expression and closed the album, pushing it to the side and folding her hands on the counter. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Steve folded the dishcloth, buying himself a few seconds as he tried to think of the best way to answer Darcy’s question without Tony threatening his life. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony's got the next chapter. You all ready to see how he reacted to the news about Darcy and Steve sittin' in a tree, doing a lot more than K-I-S-S-I-N-G?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I am off schedule for this story, but the muse has not been kind.

_Tony rolled out of bed, unaware of the time and not caring one bit as he shuffled to the bathroom._

_“Sir, the team has gathered –“_

_“Fuck the team,” he muttered as he pulled the faded T-shirt over his head, dropping it on the ceramic floor next to his oil-stained jeans. He didn’t remember leaving his workshop the night before. He had no idea how he got to the penthouse, let alone his bedroom. That would worry most people._

_Tony Stark wasn’t most people._

_“Sir, I am to remind you that Prince Thor has returned to Earth.”_

_“Point Break’s back?” Tony spoke over a mouthful of toothpaste. “Did he bring any of that Asgardian mead with him? Never mind,” he continued before Jarvis could respond in that judgmental tone Tony programmed specifically to be used on Rhodey and Pepper, and yet seemed to be reserved for him._

_“Sir, Captain Rogers –“_

_“Can bite me,” Tony finished as he ducked his head under the shower. Jesus Christ, there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to help him cope with Captain Stick Up His Ass this early in the whatever-time-it was. “I’ll get there when I fucking get there.”_

* * *

_He walked into the conference room of the still-under-construction tower (thank you, Loki and no, that helmet of yours isn’t overcompensating for **anything** ) just in time to hear Steve tell Clint to “Drop it.” Normally, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything the good captain had to say, the field being the only exception (and that was only when his “orders” were something Tony planned to do anyway) but Capsicle sounded frustrated. Frustrated, tense and perhaps even a little embarrassed, if the pink tint on the tops of his ears were anything to go by. He had to know what that was about._

_“Sounds like someone isn’t being a team player,” he chided as he collapsed in the chair near the head of the table; close enough to see whatever it was Fury and Hill didn’t want him to see, but not so close that he’d be expected to say anything. As much as he detested Romanov, he had to admit she did a bang up job of categorizing his faults during her undercover mission. ‘Course, an alien attack blew all that to hell and he’s part of the team anyway. He smirked at the redhead. She raised an eyebrow in response._

_“Hey,” Tony nudged Bruce’s shoulder repeatedly, stopping only when the other man looked up from his thick periodical with a resigned look on his face. “What’d Barton do to get Rogers all riled?”_

_Bruce glanced over at the two men. Clint had a devious smirk on his face. Steve’s arms were crossed over his chest, his expression stoic. “He’s riled?”_

_Tony studied the blond. Yeah, it was subtle, but he had a wealth of knowledge when it came to Captain America (thanks, Dad). His jaw was clenched. His eyes were narrowed. He was definitely not happy about something._

_God bless Barton for being such an asshole._

_“Best meeting ever,” Tony announced as Steve made a grab for Clint’s phone, the archer darting away to run to the opposite end of the room, the large table between them._

_“Give me the phone!” Steve demanded._

_“Dude, I gave you every chance to come clean and you didn’t.”_

_“What?” Tony’s head whipped from one man to the next. “What’s going on? There are no secrets on the team! There’s no I in team – or secrets!”_

_“Tony, two of our teammates are spies.”_

_“Why must you hurt me, Bruce?”_

_Steve leapt over the table, tackling Clint to the ground, but not before he tossed his phone to Tony. “Photos of Cap’s secret girl!”_

_“Best meeting ever,” Tony repeated as he hooked Clint’s phone to his tablet, bringing up a holographic screen in the middle of the table before Steve could turn around. “And it just got better,” he announced as a photo of Steve smiling down at a brown haired woman appeared. Her face was hidden, partly because of the baseball cap she had pulled low on her forehead, a mass of dark curls spilling over her navy blue T-shirt, but mostly because Steve had her face in his hands. Tony swiped a finger over the tablet, pulling up the next photo. Same girl. Same dopey expression on Steve’s face, though he was leaning down. “Barton, did you stalk the good captain?”_

_Clint flipped to his feet. “Had to. Dude was all over me for advice about this girl, then nothing.”_

_“Maybe he thought it was none of your business,” Bruce murmured._

_“No offense, Doc, but when a guy asks for girl advice, it’s understood that the person to dispense said advice is informed of how it went.” Clint took the chair two down from Natasha. “When Cap here decided not to adhere to said understanding, I took it upon myself to check things out. Call it a debrief.”_

_“It’s an invasion of privacy and it stops now.” Steve spoke through gritted teeth._

_“Oh, that means something good is coming up!” Tony crowed, swiping through the photos so fast, it was like watching a flip book of Captain America’s make out session in a public park. He gave a low whistle as the couple on screen shifted from sweet to heated, Steve hoisting the woman in his arms, her legs wrapping around his waist as he pressed her against a tree._

_“OK, you’ve had your fun,” Steve held out his hand. “Give me the phone.”_

_Tony ignored him, his eyes narrowed as he focused on the woman in the photo. Her hat had fallen to the ground and the angle of Steve’s head showed more of her face than the previous images. “What the …”_

_“Tony –“ Steve started, wincing when Tony swiped to the next image – this one of Darcy’s head back, her fingers tangled in Steve’s hair as he pressed kisses along her throat. Her eyes were closed, but Tony didn’t need to see their vivid blue to know that was his little girl being groped by Captain Fucking America._

* * *

“You broke his nose?!”

Tony’s head snapped up at his daughter’s horrified screech, smacking his head against the metal chest plate of his newest Iron Man suit. “Um …”

“What the hell, Dad?” Darcy stomped into his workroom, expertly skirting around DUM-E who trailed after her.

“In my defense, it was back to normal in less than an hour,” Tony replied, still pissed that it had taken much longer for his cracked knuckles to heal. He promised himself the next time he got a free swing at Steve (because not only had the guy not moved when Tony attacked him filled with righteous paternal fury, he didn’t defend himself from Tony’s fists, either), he’d wear the suit’s gloves.

“In your defense? In your _defense_?” Darcy looked incredulous. “Is everything a fucking joke to you? Is that why we no longer talk?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who said we no longer talk?” Tony glared at man standing on the doorway. He knew this was going to come to light eventually, but dammit, he wanted to be the one to explain it to Darcy. “You couldn’t keep your big mouth shut, couldn’t you? Couldn’t let me have my daughter for one more day?”

“Dad –“

“Do you have any idea what it’s like, seeing her with you?” Tony continued, his glare moving to focus on James who appeared behind Steve. “With both of you? Forget for a minute that my daughter is dating two guys – plural, people! – old enough to be her grandfathers and that one of them was my own father’s fucking obsession to the point where he didn’t care about anything that didn’t relate to Old Glory standing there, including his own fucking son! Forget that I had to learn about it from some goddamn surveillance photos that Barton took as a joke! Forget that I had to watch as she fell in love with a guy who not only makes a habit out of running into dangerous situation, he finds ways to make them even more dangerous by oh, I don’t know, jumping out of an airplane without a fucking parachute!”

He took small satisfaction in watching Darcy’s head whip around to glare at Steve. “You did _what_?”

“Told you that was going to bite you in the ass,” James muttered.

“Darce –“ Steve started.

“This I’ve gotta see,” Tony leaned against his workbench.

She turned back to him. “You’re not in the clear, Dad.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “’Course I’m not, Baby Girl, because along with the sarcasm and comebacks, you also inherited my stubbornness.”

“Dad –“

“You want to know why we don’t talk? Cause I fucked up, OK? I told you I knew what I was doing, I promised you I’d be careful, that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, and I didn’t keep it.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I couldn’t keep it,” he said glumly. “I tried. I know it probably looked like I didn’t and, granted, I made some stupid decisions, but I never meant to drive you away. Over and over you told me to be careful. Over and over I promised.”

Darcy’s face had paled at her father’s word. “You broke your promise?” she whispered.

“More than once,” he admitted glumly.

“How?”

He started fiddling with the tools on the metal workbench. This was not how he wanted to have this conversation. Hell, he never wanted to have this conversation. He wasn’t ready to watch Darcy walk out of his life again. “Didn’t Thing One fill you in?”

She shook her head. “We went to their apartment – our apartment, I guess. I wanted to see it, to see if anything looked familiar.” She leaned against the table, her anger taking a backseat to melancholy. Tony almost preferred the anger. “It’s gorgeous,” she told him. “I’m guessing you don’t know that.”

“Haven’t been invited,” he quipped, pretending the words didn’t hurt.

“Yeah,” she continued. “It’s me, I guess. Or us. But it’s not, too -- not because I don’t remember it, but because nothing’s familiar. You always called me a pack rat, laughed at me for keeping photo albums and scrapbooks. I remember that, but none of them were there.” She looked up. “Where’d they go? Did I lose ‘em?”

“You left them at the house when you left for college.”

“And …”

Tony sighed. “And the house was attacked. Destroyed. Nothing was salvageable.”

She didn't look surprised. If he hadn't been dreading her next question, he would have noticed that sooner. “That’s why you live here now?”

“One of the reasons.”

Darcy rubbed her eyes. She looked exhausted. “Why was our house attacked?”

Tony glanced over her shoulder. Steve and James were still there, their expressions schooled to give away nothing. “It was my fault,” he admitted. “It was after Happy was attacked by the Mandarin. I … I didn’t respond well, OK? Next to you and Pepper and Rhodey, Happy is family. He was attacked because of me! I was pissed! I was pissed about New York, pissed about you and Capsicle, pissed that it was totally fine for him to be a superhero but apparently not OK for me!”

“That’s not fair,” she said quietly. Tiredly.

His laugh was bitter. He knew that. He was fucking bitter. “You’re right, it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that everything I’ve done, _everything!_ , was to try and make up for all the times I fucked up, and all I’ve succeeded in doing is pushing you away!” He stopped himself from reaching out to her, from grabbing her and holding on until he could make her understand!

“You didn’t tell me you were dying!” she shouted, making him step back in surprise. “Yeah, I read the report. Everything from SHIELD is on the fucking Internet, Dad! You think I haven’t dug around? I know there are things you’re not telling me! I know there are things they’re not telling me,” she continued, waving her hand in Steve’s and James’ direction. “You think I care about the fucking house?! You almost died!”

“Darcy –“

“You almost died multiple times!” she screamed. “I fucking lost count how many times you almost died! Do you think that’s fun for me?”

“What about them?” he shouted back. “Have you read up on them? They’re not so innocent, you know!”

She took a step back, her face closed off. “No, they’re not,” she replied softly. “But they’re not my dad.”

Tony felt his anger drain from him immediately. “What do you want, Darcy? You want me to say I’m sorry? Cause I am. I’ve told you that again and again, but it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t good enough then and from the way you’re looking at me, I’m guessing it’s not good enough now.” He walked past her, his face stormy as he approached Steve and James who moved away from the door to let him pass.

“Tony –“ Steve started.

He kept going, Jarvis opening the elevator for him without prompting. Part of him wanted to stay, to keep yelling until he got through to Darcy, but what was the point? “You won, Cap, OK? Just like last time.” He turned around, his arms folded across his chest. “Congratulations.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kind of a downer. Sorry.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting early because the muse decided to end her silent treatment (yay!) and it's Super Sam to the rescue (double yay!)

Darcy flopped on the sofa in the so-called communal living room of the tower, having assured Steve and James she was fine, she just needed some time to herself.

She was antsy. She was never great at pouting after a fight. She had to do something, to channel her anger and frustration into something productive. She picked up the remote and flipped through the channels, but nothing caught her attention. The video game system tucked beside the cushioned ottoman in the middle of the sitting area had potential.

“You wanna play?”

Darcy looked over her shoulder at the man leaning against the breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the sitting area. “Sam, right?”

“At your service,” he grinned, pushing himself away from the counter and sauntering into the room, settling on the couch next to Darcy.

“Is this something we do?” she asked as he handed her a remote control.

“Me kicking your ass in _Mario Kart_? No,” he said as the game appeared on the screen. “Usually it’s you kicking mine.”

Darcy looked down at her remote. “I don’t remember this version of the game.”

“Yeah, I’m counting on that,” Sam said as he scrolled through the characters. “It’d be nice to claim a victory.”

Darcy snorted. “You’re going to take pride in beating the girl with amnesia?”

“Hells to the yeah!” Sam showed her how to select a character and vehicle. “I don’t think you understand how many ass kickings you’ve handed me, Lewis. A man’s got to take advantage of every opportunity he’s given.”

Sam killed her in the first game, securing the Mushroom Cup. He did so again for the Flower Cup, but by the time they were racing for the Star Cup, Darcy had found her groove, crossing the finish line before Sam in each of the four races.

“Damn,” he muttered as Darcy laughed. “Go again?”

She nodded in assent, though her focus wasn’t on the game as their characters raced around Bowser’s castle. “Can I ask you something?” she asked seconds after tossing a blue shell at Sam’s Yoshi.

“Only if you stop throwing shells at me.”

“Deal.”

“Shoot.”

“Was I happy?”

Sam set down his remote, the game forgotten as he turned toward Darcy. “Meaning …”

She put her remote down, too. “I found out that I’m basically estranged from my dad – I assume Pepper and Rhodey, too – which you obviously know about already, given the completely unsurprised look on your face.”

“I’m a crappy liar,” he said with a shrug. “Sorry.”

“That’s OK. Lying, apparently, is what got me into this.” Darcy paused the game, the silence of the room deafening without its cheerful sounds. “Do I need to rehash the details?”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t know the details,” he assured her, “but I do know you and Tony don’t talk … or didn’t talk.”

“What else?”

“That’s it,” he told her, his words so definite, she believed him. “Tony was not a topic open for conversation. With anyone.”

Darcy leaned back against the couch. “I don’t get it,” she confessed. “I’m not going to pretend he’s perfect, but he’s my dad! What does it say about me that I was able to cut him out my life so easily?”

“I don’t think it was easy for you, Darcy,” Sam said in what James called his “therapist voice.”

She looked over. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You might not have talked about him and he didn’t talk about you, but it was pretty obvious neither one of you was happy about it. I never saw two people so determined to pretend everything was fine. After seeing you two together these past few days, I get it. You’re close.”

“You mean we were close,” she corrected.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Sam shrugged. “Tell me this; are you angry with him?”

“I’m not thrilled, but I’m not mad, exactly," she admitted. "It’s like … it’s like watching a scary movie someone already told you the ending to. I know what’s gonna happen, so when it does, I’m not surprised. It’s like ‘OK, that’s done.’”

Sam leaned back, resting his long arms along the back of the couch. “There’s your answer.”

“What? I say it’s done and poof! Years of fighting ends?”

Sam shrugged again. “Stranger things have happened. You obviously aren’t thrilled with the idea of not having Tony in your life. Given how he’s acted since you woke up, it’s safe to say he feels the same. Who says it has to go back to that?”

“Um … I thought the plan was to try and get me caught up to how things were.”

“So you’re saying once your memories return, you’ll go back to pretending Tony Stark isn’t your father?”

Darcy looked down. No, she didn’t want that. It was hard to explain how much her father meant to her. He was more than her dad. He was the person she looked up to, the person whose opinion mattered more than anyone’s. Yes, they argued – a lot – but that was because he taught her to never back down from something she believed in, even when it conflicted with something he believed in -- a realization that suddenly made everything she learned that day make sense.

“You’re not a bad person, Darcy,” Sam continued. “Every time I saw you, you were vibrant and mouthy and full of life. You got Steve to drop the Captain America persona and just be Steve. You helped bring James back from the hell Hydra put him through. The three of you were happy -- disgustingly so. It takes someone pretty special to do all that.”

She smiled, pleased to learn future her (current her?) wasn’t a total bitch. “So what should I do now?”

Sam glanced at the video game paused on the big screen television. “I don’t think anyone would be happy pretending everything is magically OK,” he started, unsurprised at the shake of her head, “so how about a reset?”

“A reset?”

“Yeah,” he continued, warming up to the idea. “You need to keep working on getting your memory back, that’s top priority, but who’s to say everything else needs to be put on hold while you do? Maybe this is a second chance, an opportunity to get everything you want without all the hurt feelings that messed things up before. Rather than concentrate on what happened in the past, shift your focus to the future. Work towards the relationship you want to have with Tony.”

She considered that. He was right when he said she inherited his stubbornness. Admitting she was wrong was her least favorite thing to do. Granted, he wasn’t completely innocent, either, but the idea of continuing this silent treatment that apparently made both of them miserable made her sick to her stomach. “What about Steve and James?” she asked. “What will they think about a reset?”

Sam smiled at her. “Haven’t you figured it out, yet? Those two will do anything to make you happy.”

“Even be nice to my dad?”

“It’s got to be better than the forced civility they’ve been doing.”

Darcy considered that. “I don’t remember loving them,” she confessed, “but I can understand how I did. I feel comfortable around them.” She paused, deciding it was best not to share the snatches of memory that made her feel more than comfortable. “When I’m with them, I feel safe. Relaxed. God,” she groaned, “that makes them sound like an old pair of jeans, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe a little,” Sam laughed. “But I think if you told them that, leaving out the old jeans part, they’d get behind what you’re proposing.”

“What am I proposing?” Darcy asked.

“Dating,” Sam said in an obvious tone.

“ _What?!_ ”

Sam looked surprised. “That’s what you were getting to, right? A reset? Not picking up where things were, but starting over, right? With Tony, that means re-establishing the father-daughter relationship. With Steve and James, that means re-establishing the entire relationship.”

“It does?”

He nodded.

Darcy cocked her head to the side. It would be nice to get to know Steve and James outside of nightmare aftermath comfort and snippets of sex-fueled memories. “And you think dating is the way to do that?”

“Most normal people would,” Sam replied. “Of course, I no longer hang out with normal people, so what the hell do I know,” he muttered as he picked up his remote.

Darcy picked up her remote control, too. “You know,” she said before unpausing the game, “I actually thought my life had reached the pinnacle of weirdness.”

Sam snorted. “You really do have amnesia, don’t you?”

* * *

“This is ridiculous.”

Darcy poured a cup of heavy cream in the sauté pan. “You’re ridiculous.”

Tony glared at his daughter, the look becoming more pronounced after she slapped his hand when he reached for a piece of herbed chicken resting under the tented foil. “Be nice,” he told her.

“You be nice.”

“Pepper!” Tony yelled.

“Pepper!” Darcy echoed, sticking her tongue out at her dad when the willowy woman walked into the kitchen, kissing Darcy on the cheek and ignoring Tony.

“How can I help?” she asked.

Darcy pointed the whisk at Tony. “Keep him busy.”

Pepper looked at Tony. He gave her a cheeky grin. “No, really, how can I help?” she asked.

It was nearing 7 p.m. the day after Darcy’s reset conversation with Sam. She proceeded to kick his ass in _Mario Kart_ before asking Jarvis to direct her to her father where, after he had sobered up some, the two engaged in one of the most uncomfortable conversations of their entire relationship, not including Tony’s version of the birds and the bees talk, which Darcy wished had joined the “I can’t remember” part of her brain. The good news was he was completely on board with re-establishing his relationship with Darcy. When she explained that she would be doing the same with Steve and James – and that she expected Tony’s cooperation and support – he balked.

_“I cover their asses in the field. We’re fine.”_

_“You tried to bribe Johnny Storm into setting them on fire.”_

_“That is a vicious lie! Who is filling your head with such nonsense?”_

_“You did! An hour ago!”_

_“I was drunk!” Tony scoffed. “You can never believe what anyone says when they’re drunk!”_

_“You always told me a person most honest when they’re under the influence and that’s why Las Vegas should be the business venture capital of the world!”_

_“I was not aware that you were actually listening when I said that!”_

_Darcy rolled her eyes, the knot in her stomach diminishing the more she shouted at her father. She’d never understand families who kept everything inside. That couldn’t be healthy. “I’m inviting them to dinner, Dad. We’re going to have a nice meal together, like normal people do when a daughter wants her family to meet her boyfriend.” She paused. “Boyfriends,” she amended._

_“Who are these normal people of which you speak?” Tony demanded._

_“The cast of Full House.”_

“I don’t know if it’s escaped you, but we have money,” Tony remarked as Darcy poured the last of the crepe batter into the saucepan, swirling the creamy liquid until it covered the bottom. “We could have ordered dinner.”

“Cooking relaxes me,” Darcy said seconds before she accidentally brushed up against the sauté pan. “Dammit!”

“Tony,” Pepper suggested, wrapping a damp cloth around Darcy’s wrist. “Why don’t you get the door?”

“No one’s at the door.”

“Sir, Captain Rogers and Sargent Barnes are at the door,” Jarvis announced.

“Everyone in this fucking tower is against me!” Tony shouted as he stomped to the door, pulling it open with excessive force. He glared at the two men standing in the doorway. Both held a bouquet of flowers. Steve’s was cream roses and pink lilies for Pepper, while James had two dozen yellow Gerbera daisies for Darcy. Before Tony could berate them, Steve shoved a bottle of Macallan Sherry Oak scotch in his hands. “Here’s the deal,” he told them. “I’ll let you in only if you agree that Barton never finds out about tonight.”

“Done,” Steve and James replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want anyone to be sad anymore and totally support Sam's reset idea!
> 
> According to Google, a bottle of Macallan Sherry Oak can cost anywhere between $1,250 to $1,500. I figured Steve and James would want to make a good impression, but not be so desperate for Tony's approval that they'd spend more than that. They know it doesn't matter. They could have spent $40,000 for a bottle of scotch (yes, they exist) and Tony would still dislike them.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the video of Anthony Mackie playing Catch Phrase on The Tonight Show. He admits to being "that dude" when it comes to board games.
> 
> Me too, my friend.
> 
> That being said, I totally want to read an Avengers Game Night fic. Someone write that. Please!

Three weeks had passed since Darcy announced her reset plans. That equaled five family dinners with Tony and Pepper, three family movie nights and one disastrous game night that launched 16 hours of silent treatment amongst all participants.

Darcy, Tony and Sam were no longer allowed to play _Taboo_.

“It’s taboo,” Steve joked after he ceremoniously tossed the game into the fireplace after getting the two highly-competitive Starks and Did-anyone-know-he-was-that-aggressive? Sam to agree to the terms of his truce.

James didn’t blame Tony for beaming his (thankfully empty) coffee cup at Steve’s head; it was a terrible joke. Steve caught it, of course, but even he couldn’t bat away ever muffin Darcy and Sam threw at his face.

While James severely disliked the increased presence of the egotistical futurist in his life, he enjoyed watching Darcy bloom under the care of her father. He knew she missed him, but he had no idea how deep that emotion went. The two of them were two peas in a pod, cut from the same mold. If they weren't yelling at each other, their dark heads were pressed together, voices low as they conversed. Or plotted. It was hard to tell the difference.

_“I never thought I’d see that again,” Pepper smiled over her glass of wine at the two people dozing on the sofa after a not-quite-as-awkward family dinner. Darcy was tucked against her father’s side, their arms wrapped around each other, his chin resting on the top of her head._

_“Can I ask you a question?” Steve asked._

_“Of course.”_

_“Did you try to get them back together?”_

_Pepper set down her glass. “Let me answer that with a question. Did you?”_

_Steve shook his head. “She said the subject was off the table.”_

_“Tony told me the same thing.” Pepper glanced over at the pair, her face softening. “I probably could have pushed more, but I didn’t want to risk Tony cutting me out of his life, too. Before she left, Darcy told me to take care of him. She didn’t want to force me, or Rhodey or Happy, to take sides, and made the choice for us. I missed her terribly. The only way I could show her how much I love her was to take care of her father.”_

It wasn’t all familial bonding. Yes, being around Tony more sucked, but like the saying goes, every dark cloud has a silver lining. For James, that was dating Darcy.

The three of them didn’t exactly date the first time around. Oh, he knew Steve and Darcy did. He heard their how-we-met story and knew everything that happened on their first date and laughed at Steve’s complete lack of game for date number three, but by the time he showed up, they were firmly entrenched in couple hood. They spent more nights in than out and grabbing coffee after going to the grocery store was considered a weekend treat. James didn’t mind. After everything they’d been through, there was comfort in the ordinary. He was added to the mix without drama, the three of them slipping into their non-traditional romance without fuss.

_“See?” Steve whispered, his breath warm on James’ neck, Darcy tucked against him, already asleep. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”_

Still, James was a romantic. Bucky had been one decades before and that was one part of his past he grabbed on to with both hands. Maybe it didn’t make sense to shower Darcy with presents after a calm and logical conversation about polyamorous relationships or eat pizza with Steve by candlelight, but there was part of him that wanted that. He was extremely happy in his relationship with Steve and Darcy; ecstatic, actually. He loved his boyfriend and his girlfriend more than he ever thought possible, but if Darcy got to claim reset on their relationship and start from square one, he was going to take that as permission to do everything he didn’t get to do before.

He started small, braving the bagel shop cashier’s intense hatred of him to bring Darcy her favorite breakfast as well as a flower he picked up at the florist around the corner from the tower. He took her dancing and on long walks through the city, accompanied her to her every doctor appointment, and packed a picnic lunch to celebrate the first truly sunny day (though they ate it indoors because it was only 42 degrees outside and James was not going to risk Darcy catching a cold on top of everything else). He texted her when they weren’t together and greeted her with a kiss (on the cheek, Tony!) every time he saw her. Steve wasn’t neglected. He, too, was subjected to James’ courtship, from notes left around their apartment to backrubs every night.

_“I always assumed you were the prince and James …” Sam trailed off, not wanting to say the wrong thing in front of the man’s don’t-let-the-nice-guy-image-fool-you-he-can-kick-your-ass boyfriend._

_“The cad?” Steve supplied._

_“Yeah.”_

_Steve smiled as he watched James hand Darcy a gift bag. He already knew what was inside: a new pair of cotton pajamas with matching fuzzy socks, a copy of every Pixar movies made since 2007, a family-sized box of her favorite microwave popcorn, and a two-pound bag of M &Ms. They were going to have an all-night movie marathon, a twofold plan that meant she’d spend the night at their apartment instead of going back to her room in the penthouse. “I was never as comfortable around women as Bucky,” he told Sam. “I was too focused on trying to string enough words together to form a sentence that didn’t make me sound like an idiot.”_

_Sam looked over, his left eyebrow raised in question. “So you’re just gonna let him woo your girl?”_

_Steve might not be as comfortable expressing himself as James, but there was no way he was going to let him score all the points in this sort of new relationship. He applied his tactical skills to romancing James Barnes and Darcy Lewis, taking the Getting to Know You phase almost literally. They both laughed when he made an appointment with a handwriting analysis (truth be told, he did, too), but all three of them ended up having a great time._

_“I want to call bullshit, but I can’t,” James admitted as he skimmed the reports each received at the end of the session. According to the personality chart, both he and Steve were extremely assertive, while Darcy was substantially assertive. Steve also scored high in ambition and perfectionism, while Darcy was a perfect 10 under worldliness. James was pleased his markings in aggression were on the lower end of the scale._

_“What does it mean when we all scored in the moderate range for submissive?” Darcy asked._

_Steve grinned, picking up Darcy’s hand in his. “It means sometimes I’m in charge, sometimes you’re in charge and sometimes Bucky is in charge,” he said in a low voice before her kissed the back of her hand. If he got a satisfied feeling in his chest when he saw her hand tremble, then mission accomplished._

* * *

There was a fourth man taking up a lot of Darcy’s time: Sam. Somehow he found himself spending an hour or two with her every day under the guise of playing video games, but really to talk out whatever was crowding her mind. Like James, Steve and every other super powered, super skilled or super combination of both humans he found himself living with these days, Darcy picked up on his innate desire to help people and latched on. She didn’t care that he wasn’t a trained therapist and whatever experience he had was geared towards veterans. James trusted him. Steve trusted him. That was good enough for her. Sam didn’t mind. Yeah, he put up a fuss, but it was mostly for show at this point. Besides, she was teaching him some kickass moves on games she couldn’t remember playing, moves he was totally going to use against Barton the next time he was at the tower.

“I ran into Natasha the other day,” Darcy said, her body jerking to one side as her Lego Hermione figurine cast a spell. “I can’t figure her out.”

“Most people can’t; dammit, Ron!” Sam glared at his little computerized red-headed figure. How the hell did he end up with Hermione Granger?

“Yeah, but it’s not the spy thing. I get this feeling of dislike, intense dislike, whenever I see her. That’s weird, right? ‘Cause you said I didn’t spend a lot of time with her.”

“That’s true. You told Steve you didn’t want to know about his SHIELD/Avenger life. Aside from the whole SHIELD is Hydra and James is still alive incident –“

“Yeah, that old thing,” Darcy interrupted with a snort.

“—he did a pretty good job separating personal and professional. He didn’t have a lot of friends outside of work, but he never seemed to mind. More time with you, he’d say.”

“He’s so sweet,” Darcy cooed, snickering when Sam blushed.

“Play the game, Lewis.”

* * *

Meanwhile, nine floors down, Steve and James were locked together in a tight hold, their sweat-soaked skin making it difficult for either man to get a firm grip on the other. What started as a typical sparring session had turned into something bigger. Hotter. They never officially agreed to table the physical aspect of their relationship while Darcy was recovering, but it didn’t feel right to enjoy each other carnally without her. It was the three of them or nothing at all.

If only they knew how long nothing at all would last.

“Ha!” Steve crowed, slipping out of James’ hold, his leg darting out to sweep the brown-haired man to his back. James rolled before Steve could pin him down, flipping to his feet quickly, the two men panting heavily as they eyed each other warily.

“That’s hot.” Two heads whipped to wear Darcy stood in the doorway, her blue eyes wide as she took in the two men watching her with equal fascination. She was wearing skin-tight black capris, two sports bras and a loose tank. Her feet were bare, but she had a pair of running shoes dangling from their laces in her right hand. She took a tentative step in the gym, looking around with undisguised curiosity. She remembered watching her dad box with Happy, even stepping into the ring a few times herself. She took a self-defense class her junior year of high school to fulfill her PE requirement and, according to Steve, she had carried a Taser on her since her 19th birthday. According to the report about her abduction (which nobody knew she read; it was like they assumed her amnesia extended to the kickass computer skills she’s honed practically since birth), a broken Taser was found close to where she was taken off the street. She made a mental note to purchase another one soon. Better yet, she’d ask her dad to make her one.

“Everything alright?” Steve asked, one hand cupping Darcy’s elbow, James on her other side. He kissed her cheek, angling damp body carefully so not to touch hers, before walking to his gym bag along the wall. Both she and Steve watched as James pulled his T-shirt over his head, using it to wipe his face before crouching down to grab a fresh shirt. Darcy couldn’t help her quiet moan.

“He’s pretty, isn’t he?” Steve whispered.

“Uh-huh,” she squeaked.

He winked, kissing the top of her head and squeezing her arm before he, too, went to his bag, first digging out his water bottle and guzzling the entire contents before he swiped his shirt for another. Thanks to the serum, he heard Darcy’s sharp intake of breath. If he took longer to pull on his gray shirt, well, who could blame him?

“You’re pretty, too,” James said quietly, grabbing the fistful of Steve’s shirt and bringing him close for a quick kiss, his lips turning up as Darcy moaned again.

“Don’t torture our girl,” Steve said under his breath.

“She’s the one doing the torturing,” James growled before letting him go and walking to Darcy. No, he didn’t mind starting their relationship over. The reset was great for doing everything they didn’t do before, all the sweet gestures that show someone how much you really care. The beginning of a relationship is the foundation upon which it’s built. He knew that. He knew that this time was important, but God fucking dammit, he was suffering from the worst case of blue balls known to mankind. “What brings you here, doll?” He glanced at her shoes. “Treadmills are one floor up.”

“Huh?” She looked at him blankly for a second before shaking her head. “Oh, no, I don’t want to run. Um, I was talking to Sam and I told him that I keep having this memory, maybe, of when I was gone.”

“You’re remembering?” Steve was by Darcy’s side in seconds.

“No,” she hedged. “It’s part of my dreams … I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I get hit. I don’t know who did it or why. I can’t feel it, physically, but I get this emotional rush, like all I want is the power to hurt him. Or them. Like I said, I don’t know. It’s hazy.” She took a deep breath, unaware that her words filled each man with even more rage against the person (people?) who took her. “I’ve had some self-defense training, but Sam thought it might be therapeutic if I did more – not because I plan on getting kidnapped again, but because it might give me this sense of power, some control over something.” She looked at them, her gaze uncertain as she took on their passive expressions. “Does that make sense?”

Steve snapped out of it first. This was not the time to get mad. Darcy needed him. “That makes perfect sense, sweetheart. I know it’d make us feel better, right Bucky? Bucky?” He had to say his name two more times and elbow him in the side before the dark-haired man answered – if you could call his grunt of assent an answer. “How can we help?”

“That’s why I’m here.” Darcy stepped back and held her hands out. “My body’s in your hands. Show me what to do with it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hands up if you're ready for some sexy fun times in the next chapter!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This next chapter is NSFW. But it's Sunday, so we better make that not suitable for coffee shops or brunch or family dinner or whatever it is you do on Sunday.
> 
> This is a long chapter. The story has been building up to it. Enjoy!

_James watched Darcy leap onto Steve’s back. She wrapped her legs around his lean waist and twined her arms around his neck. “That’s not the right –“ he called as Darcy leaned down and blew a raspberry against Steve’s neck, making the blond laugh. “—hold,” he finished on a sigh, one hand running through his hair in frustration._

_“Really?” Darcy giggled as Steve maneuvered her around his body so she was facing him, his large hands splayed over her ass, lifting her higher so he could kiss her. “It works for me!”_

_James shook his head. For weeks he’d dragged Darcy to the gym near their apartment for after hours training (a privilege granted to them because the owner was a huge Captain America fan) after learning her previous self-defense instruction included one class in high school and multiple viewings of Miss Congeniality._

_“I have my Taser,” she replied when he first proposed the idea._

_“Which you don’t have on you 24/7.”_

_“I have you and Steve.”_

_“Which you, unfortunately, don’t have on you 24/7.”_

_James knew Darcy expected Steve to take her side – after all, he was just as reckless and impulsive as she was – but the man seemed to discover his long-lost sensibilities when it came to Darcy’s safety and dutifully tagged along. Unfortunately, he crumbled like a cookie whenever Darcy would flash her baby blues his way. The fact that she found Instructor James and Assistant Steve really hot (that wasn’t his ego talking; she told them that several times) didn’t help._

_“Baby, please,” James tried as Darcy pulled Steve to the mat-covered floor, the so-called super soldier apparently forgetting his serum-induced strength as he let her climb on top of him, groaning as she circled her hips into his. She looked over her shoulder, her expression smug as her eyes slowly traveled up his body. “You can watch or you can play,” she told him as she lifted her shirt over her head, Steve’s hands immediately sliding underneath her sports bra to cup her breasts. “Either one works for me, but I’d rather you play.”_

* * *

 

“Again.”

Darcy twisted the arm Steve had around her chest, her body moving in the opposite direction as she slid out of his hold. Without James’ prompting, she elbowed Steve in the neck, incapacitating him long enough for her to run to the other side of the gymnasium.

“Good!” James yelled as Darcy trotted back, water bottle in hand for the man who had basically let her abuse him for several hours a day for almost a week. James watched as Steve reassured Darcy he was fine. He described (to James only) that her hits, kicks and punches the pain scale equivalent of a stubbed toe, but that didn’t stop him from basking in Darcy’s care after each lesson. “That was real good, doll,” he repeated.

“Thanks,” she panted, taking the water bottle back from Steve and finishing it. Her skin was damp with perspiration, her face red from physical exertion and the tendrils of hair were falling out of her ponytail. James never wanted her more. He wished, briefly, that Darcy wasn’t so disciplined during their lessons. There was none of the mischief from previous training efforts. He wanted her to be able to take care of herself, but he also wanted _her_. “Are we done?” she asked, lifting the hem of her shirt to wipe her face, missing the pained look that crossed both men’s faces at the flash of skin. There was a spot, just above her belly button, that for some strange reason made her moan. Steve discovered it during a lazy day in bed, their arms and legs tangled together.

James didn’t bother to look at Steve. If he was suffering, he could only imagine how the man who held Darcy in various positions for the past two hours felt. “Yeah, doll, we’re done.”

“Coolio,” she chirped. “I’m gonna go shower. You’re still up for a movie tonight, right? Dad and Pepper have some SI shindig to go to, so we’ve got the tower to ourselves and can take advantage of the huge ass TV on the communal floor without worrying he’s gonna crash,” she continued, smiling when she caught the relieved look James shot Steve. “I know this hasn’t been easy on you guys, going from Tony being a guy you associated with whenever the world needed to be saved to hanging out with him every day.”

“And night,” James couldn’t help but add.

“And night,” Darcy agreed. “It really means a lot to me that you’re being so supportive about all of this. Thank you.”

Steve’s arm went around her waist, pulling her into a hug. “You don’t have to thank us, sweetheart. We know how much Tony means to you.”

“Even though he can be a gigantic pain in the ass?”

“’M not walking into that trap,” James snorted.

“I plead the fifth,” Steve agreed, kissing the top of Darcy’s head before letting her go. She turned and gave James a hug, tilting her head for his traditional kiss on her cheek, turning at the last minute so he got the corner of her mouth instead.

“See you later,” she called over her shoulder.

* * *

 

She lied. There wasn’t a Stark Industries event that night. Darcy had asked Pepper, woman to woman, if she would please get her dad out of the tower for the night so she could have guaranteed alone time with her super soldiers. She had been growing closer to Steve and James the past few weeks. At the same time, her nightmares were receding, replaced with extremely graphic images she still wasn’t sure were memories of wishful thinking. Rather than ask her sleepy time co-stars, she decided to take matters into her own hands (to start, at least) and the last thing she needed was Tony deciding he needed more time with his little girl, so she lied. She knew that was not something she and her boys did, but she was confident they’d let it go this time.

She didn’t know why she was nervous. She lost her virginity at 16 which she, unfortunately, remembered. Jesus Christ, that had been a fucking disaster. Luckily, she had memories of a much better second sexual partner, so it wasn’t like she was going into tonight like a scared virgin. Couple that with the fact that the two men she planned to seduce were her boyfriends of more than a year (she asked; January 23 was their anniversary) and piece of cake, right?

She considered her reflection in her bedroom’s full-length mirror: plaid flannel men’s style pajamas and a messy bun. Cute, but not too cute … she hoped. She didn’t want to put out a hands-off vibe, but at the same time she didn’t want to look like she was trying to seduce them. She was aware that they were being careful with her, the soft kisses they placed everywhere on her head _except_ her lips made that obvious. It would be sweet if it wasn’t so frustrating. Yes, there was this huge history between them that she didn’t remember, but she knew everything else about them. The last month had been like one long first date, with the three of them sharing everything from likes and dislikes, childhood stories, and hopes for the future. It was sweet and thoughtful and oh my God, they needed to give it up already! She had it on good authority (Sam, who escaped to DC to visit his family after Darcy told him she was ready to jump into the physical aspect of her relationship with Steve and James, and if he had any insight to their previous love life, it was time to give it up at which he turned a delightful shade of red, muttered something about privacy protocols and got the hell out of there) that the two weren’t seeking physical comfort in each other outside of kisses and a shared bed, which was both sweet and idiotic at the same time.

That summed them up perfectly: sweet and idiotic. Why else would they go for so long wanting each other, but too scared to do anything about it? If it took her to get them to admit their feelings for each other in the first place, it was obviously up to her to remind them that sex was an important part of any relationship.

Also she really, really, really wanted to see them naked.

She took one last look in the mirror, gave herself thumbs up, felt stupid for doing so and made a mental note to never do it again, and picked up the DVD sitting on the bedside table.

“Let’s do this.”

* * *

 

Steve hated cold showers. He hated the cold period – even before he crashed his plane into the Artic – but now the chill took on a whole new torture. He told himself he wasn’t an animal. He’d gone without sex for long periods of time before and could do so again, even if he was in nearly constant company of the two sexiest brunettes on the planet and that up until Darcy’s kidnapping, their physical relationship had been quite active. Really active. The two sexiest brunettes on the planet combined with two men with super strength (and years of pent-up sexual frustration they were still working through) and a woman who was not shy in telling them what she wanted made for an extremely satisfying sex life. But he wasn’t so barbaric that he couldn’t place Darcy’s needs ahead of his own. She needed support. She needed understanding. She needed comfort.

_“Come on Steve!” Her grip on his biceps almost desperate as she clawed at him. He ignored her pleas and continued to thrust inside her in measured, deliberate strokes. Her walls fluttered around his hard cock. The urge to pound, to take, was strong, but he didn’t want the moment to end. He gave into her too much, letting her talk him into hard when he wanted to be gentle, fast when he wanted to go slow._

_“There’s no hurry, baby,” he murmured, his hand gentle as he pushed away the tendrils of hair sticking to her damp face. “I can do this all day.”_

Steve grasped his cock in his hand, pulling and twisting as the memory assaulted his brain and the cold water pounded over his broad shoulders. He could picture Darcy in his bed perfectly -- over him, under him, wrapped around him. Another jerk of his hand and James was there, too, his familiar smirk egging him on as they worshipped their girl, James pushing her breasts up and together as he lowered his mouth to tongue and suck both nipples _._

“Fuck,” he groaned as his balls tightened, his release coming seconds later. Gasping for breath, he hung his head, the image still crystal clear in his mind. No, he wasn’t an animal, but he was a man; a man who wanted his lovers. Desperately.

* * *

 

Darcy was already situated on the couch when they walked onto the communal floor, a blanket covering her legs and a large bowl of popcorn in her lap. Drinks were already sitting on coasters on the table behind the couch.

“Nice dinner,” James grinned as he flopped on Darcy’s left side. She threw a piece of popcorn at him, rolling her eyes when he caught it easily in his mouth. Stupid super soldiers and their lightning fast reflexes. Steve shook his head at the two as he stepped over their legs to get situated on Darcy’s right.

“Ready?” she asked, picking up the remote. Both men nodded and Darcy pushed play. Seconds later, the beginning strands of _The Godfather_ echoed throughout the surround sound system. Steve turned to Darcy, who didn’t even both to pretend she was enthralled by the classic film on the screen. “I heard we have happy memories tied to this movie,” she said slyly.

James grinned, well informed of the memories she was referring to. Steve glanced at the movie, James, and finally Darcy. She was watching him, a familiar challenging look on her face. “Are you sure?” His voice was wrecked. God, please let her be sure.

She leaned towards him, her breasts pressing against his arm. “Show me what I’ve been missing,” she whispered.

* * *

 

They were in their suite in seconds. In reality, it probably took longer, but it felt like seconds. One minute she was pressed against Steve on the sofa, the next she was pulled to her feet and tossed over James’ shoulder, the elevator apparently too slow for him as he ran up the stairs. She couldn’t help but laugh, her nerves fading as she focused on the oh-so-incredible view of James Barnes’ ass. But now she was standing in front of them, both of them watching her with unabashed want. She nearly moaned aloud at the naked hunger in Steve’s gaze. Her eyes flicked to James. He simply ran his slowly down her body, managing to make her feel naked and exposed despite the fact that he was the one without a shirt – and when the hell did that happen?

“Are you sure?” Steve asked again.

She had never felt surer of anything in her life. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

James leapt over the coffee table and pulled her in his arms, his lips hard on hers as he pressed against her. “’S been so long,” he murmured, his breath warm against her skin as he kissed his way down her neck, paying careful attention to a spot just underneath her jaw, near her ear, that made her pant as he nibbled, licked and sucked. Of course he would know all of her erogenous zones. He _knew_ her. _They_ knew her.

“It’s not fair,” she grumbled, even as she arched her neck to give him better access.

“What’s not fair?” Steve whispered in her ear, his strong arms pulling her against his chest just as James hit that spot that make her legs buckle.

“This,” she moaned as one of Steve’s hands made its way under her pajama top, a calloused thumb brushing against her soft skin, making her shiver. “You guys know all the buttons to push. I don’t!”

James pulled back, his expression both serious and playful as he took in her pout, her full lips pursed in a way that made her look even more adorable. “Baby, we have all the time in the world for you to relearn our secrets,” he promised. “Let us take control for now and I promise I’ll help you get Stevie begging later.”

“Really?”

James locked eyes on the man standing behind her. “It will be my genuine pleasure,” he promised as Steve groaned. “But first,” he turned Darcy around so she was facing Steve. “Kiss him.”

Steve’s lips were warm and soft against hers. She closed her eyes as she sank into his taste, his feel. She licked his lower lip, toying with his mouth, before she slid her tongue past his parted lips to tangle with his, gasping when he raised his hands to her breasts, flicking his thumbs across her aching buds. She moaned, pressing her breasts into has hands, panting as his kisses softened, his mouth exploring and teasing. “Want you,” he said just before he swept her into his arms bridal style, his eyes never leaving hers as he walked to the bedroom. “Want you so fucking much.”

She laughed as he dropped her on the bed, but then Steve pulled his shirt over his head and James pushed his sweatpants down his legs and she stopped, her mouth falling open as Steve did the same. They stood at the foot of the bed in all their naked glory, so tight and muscley and perfectly shaped and hers. All fucking hers.

"Right,” she said, pushing herself up and attacking the buttons on her pajama top, suddenly scared that she’d die of sensory overload before she got to feel what it was like to be pressed against them. “Naked time.”

Steve was at her side immediately, his hands covering hers with a quiet “Let me” while James settled on the opposite side, both men groaning at the sight of her breasts when Steve parted the fabric, pulling the flannel off her body and tossing it away. His lips returned to hers while James focused on her breasts, first brushing his knuckles lightly over each nipple, then harder, chuckling when she arched her back.

"Now …" she gasped. "Please..."

They responded by laying her on the bed, James still very much focused on her breasts while Steve slowly pulled her pajama pants off, kissing the exposed skin as he went. "You're beautiful," he told her as he moved his way back up her naked body, the warmth of his skin on hers feeling so right, so familiar and still so new. "You are so fucking beautiful."

He settled on her right side, James on her right. As one, they kissed her breasts, Steve sucking while James nibbled. Darcy gasped at the dual sensation, her hands moving to grasp the backs of their heads, fingers tangling in their hair to push them closer. It was amazing, so much better than what she imagined, what her dreams foreshadowed. “Yes,” she gasped when Steve started biting and James sucking, the two of them so in tune with each other, with her, that all she could do was pant. When she felt two hands drift down her body, one focused on her clit, the other sliding between her folds, she cried out. “Yes! God, yes! More!”

It was apparently the right thing to say, as James moved up to attack her lips with his while Steve slid down the bed, his hands warm and heavy on her bucking hips as he settled between her legs. She was wet already and the scent of her excitement was intoxicating. He groaned deep in his throat, so ready to taste her. With maddening slowness, he drew his tongue across her clit, grinning at Darcy’s familiar gasp, followed by a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Steve … God, baby …”

James pulled back, his gaze intense as he watched her succumb to Steve’s ministrations. He cradled her face between his hands, his thumbs stroking her cheeks as she bit her lip to keep the lovely little moans and gasps inside. “Let him hear you, doll. Stevie does his best work when he’s following orders.”

Twin groans followed his words and he smirked as Steve obviously reapplied himself to his task as Darcy pressed closer to him. "Please … more … harder …"

James kissed her, swallowing her sighs, so ready for his turn to make her feel good. "It’s been so long, baby,” he murmured. Too long. She was on the edge already, Steve’s head between her thighs making it difficult for her to try and fight the orgasm building inside her. “Such a good girl, always so good for us,” James whispered as his flesh hand slowly slid down her body, finding the tight little nub between her thighs. Rubbing it softly, he brushed his nose against her cheek. "Doesn’t that feel good, doll? Do you love feeling my hand while Steve licks you?"

Darcy squeezed her eyes closed, his hand and Steve’s tongue too much for one person.

“Darcy, baby, I need you to answer me,” James voice barely broke through the roaring in her head. "We need to know if it’s too much. Do you want us to keep going?"

Oh God, they couldn’t stop. She’d die if they stopped! "Yes," she gasped.

"Are you sure?"

"YES!" she shouted.

He chuckled, increasing his pressure slightly. "She liked that," Steve lifted his head to smirk at James.

"I bet she'd like it more if you fucked her with your tongue, wouldn't you, Darcy? Do you want to feel Stevie tongue-fuck you while I kiss you right here?" He pinched her clit between his thumb and forefinger.

"YES! Please!"

"So polite," Steve remarked. “Our girl’s always so polite in the bedroom.” He resettled himself between her things and tongued Darcy, first shallow and slow, and then going deeper and harder as Darcy shifted, her hips moving up and down in a frantic rhythm. James moved down, too, his tongue circling her clit, keeping pace with Steve's movements. Darcy gasped as both men expertly worked her over, their hands keeping her still, giving her no escape as wave after wave of pleasure rolled over her, building into something too big to describe before she cried out, shouting their names incoherently. Neither man stopped, their tongues riding her orgasm with her, slowing their movements only when her hands pushed them away. She watched through heavy lids as both men lifted their heads, sharing absolutely filthy grins with one another before they pressed their lips together in a heated kiss. Darcy couldn’t tear her eyes away from the two men as their tongues dueled, the orgasm that tore through her body seconds before almost forgotten as the image before her got her lady parts humming once more. They were hers. This was hers. How the fucking hell did she get so lucky?

“We’re the ones that got lucky, doll.” James replied, a feral grin on his face.

Darcy bit her lip, feeling her cheeks redden. “I said that last part out loud, didn’t I?”

Steve slid his hands under her shoulders, pulling her up to a kneeling position in front of him. “You are the best thing that's ever happened to us,” he said reverently, his blue eyes dark with passion and intent as they bore into hers before he kissed her, his tongue delving into her mouth as he pressed her back to the bed, her legs wrapping around his waist, her hands threading through his blond locks. James watched as the pair writhed against each other. “On your back, Stevie,” he ordered.

Steve complied, rolling over until Darcy was balanced on top of him. She felt James at her back, his lips on her shoulders as his hands came around to cup her breasts. She rubbed herself against Steve’s hard length, so ready to have him inside her. She must have said that part out loud again because they next thing she knew, Steve had a condom in his hands and was tearing it open with his teeth. She helped slide it over his large cock, her hand squeezing just so because watching his eyes go dark and hearing him pant made her wet. She wanted to make him as desperate for her as she was for him. She wanted to tease and taste and touch –

“You’re going to be the death of me!” Steve gripped her hips and lifted her, impaling her on his hard cock. He groaned, she sighed, and together they started moving. James’ hands still on Darcy’s breasts, which swayed with her movements. She had perfect breasts, so full and heavy. She complained about their size, but they fit perfectly in his hands, in Steve’s. He loved to watch them bounce, move, as he thrust deep inside her. But that was for later. This was now. Running his hand down her back, his finger came to her puckered hole. He felt her tense and planted kisses along her back, as Steve soothed her.

“It will be all right, Darcy,” he murmured. “We’re not going to take you together tonight.” Darcy whimpered. She wanted them together. She wanted both of them, all three of them, exactly how it used to be. “You’re not ready,” James told her, even as he coated his finger with her body’s wetness and prodded deeper.

“But I …” she gasped as Steve’s hips jerked up, his cock driving deeper inside her. “No watching, James! Not this time!”

She couldn’t see his smug look as he pushed her hair over one shoulder. He loved how bossy she was in the bedroom; always had, always will. Sometimes he listened to her and other times he ignored her. Tonight was a combination of both as he mouthed at her neck, one finger still inside her as his other hand drifted in front of her to settle on her clit, just above where Steve was driving into her. He couldn’t resist brushing his hand against Steve’s dick, chuckling when the blond faltered, losing his rhythm. “Dammit Buck," he growled, flipping over, dislodging James from Darcy but managing to stay deep inside her. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked with a pointed look over his shoulder.

James didn’t respond, too intent on getting a second condom open, sliding it over his throbbing member. “You tell me,” he whispered in Steve’s ear as he spread the lube he grabbed from the nightstand over his cock and fingers, one hand pressing Steve forward so he could settle at the man’s back, his fingers probing inside him, scissoring slightly to get him ready.

“Yes,” Darcy moaned. “Get inside him, James. Fuck him into me. Do it hard! Make him come! Make him come!”

Steve growled at Darcy’s words, holding himself still inside her as James prepared to do what she demanded. His lovers were mouthy. Mouthy and demanding and he fucking loved it!

“You ready Stevie?” James asked seconds before he slid inside, the blond groaning in response. “Use your words, punk.”

“Jerk,” he breathed, feeling right for the first time in almost three months, pressed between his two loves. He felt tears prick his eyes and blinked frantically to clear them away, but Darcy knew, her face going soft as she brought a hand up to caress his cheek. “Love you, sweetheart,” he said, watching her eyes go wide just before James pressed deeper, his thrust pushing him further into Darcy – and then there were no words, just sighs and moans as James worked both of them over. Darcy closed her eyes, Steve’s words of love rushing over her as yet another orgasm gathered inside. She felt full of energy, of life, as if she was the one filled with a super soldier serum that made anything possible. Then again, she did have one super soldier inside her and the other –

“Talking out loud again, baby,” James groaned, his eyes squeezed shut as he forced himself to hold back, to bring her to completion. Ladies first. That was the rule.

“Sorry,” she giggled, her hands sliding over Steve’s incredible arms to grasp at his shoulders, her eyes drinking in the image of the two men over her. She had no fucking clue how she ever forgot what this looked like, but she promised herself she never would again.

“You’re doing something wrong if she’s talking,” James goaded Steve, groaning when the other man responded by swiveling his hips. Soon it wasn’t him fucking Steve and Darcy, but Steve fucking them, first driving into the curvaceous brunette beneath him before pulling himself back on James’ cock. He could tell Steve was close. He knew Darcy was close because she kept saying so, repeatedly, over and over when she wasn’t swearing or thanking Dr. Erskine or promising that next time, James was in the middle and then she was going to be and then –

“Yes!” she screamed as her orgasm crashed over her, her eyes squeezed shut as she rode out the pleasure coursing through her body, back arched as she clenched around Steve.

“Open your eyes,” James demanded. “Look at Steve!”

She did and it was a sight to see, his pupils blown wide with pleasure as he thrust through her orgasm, chasing his own, the Man with a Plan nothing more than need and want as he pressed his lips against hers as he came, James following minutes later, Darcy’s and Steve’s names a constant chant as he threw his head back, feeling at peace for the first time in months, wanting nothing more than to do it all over again.

“Fine with me, but can we nap first?” Darcy giggled as Steve held himself still as James pulled out of his body before repeating the process with Darcy. The condoms were removed and tossed quickly and efficiently, everyone cuddled together in the giant bed before James realized what she asked.

“I said that out loud, didn’t I?” he asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good job, team. :D


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news! I've plotted the final chapters of this story. Yay!
> 
> Bad news! Trying to find time to write them ...

_She loved waking like this, flushed against one hard body, a second pressed against her back. She snuggled closer to Steve, her arm snaking behind her to pull James with her, the rumble of their combined chuckles vibrating against her skin. They were laughing at her, or rather her body’s inability to warm itself on even the hottest of days. Let them laugh. Before she had two super soldiers in her life, it took layers of bulky tops and cardigans and beanies to maintain some level of warmth. Now she could be naked in the dead of winter with no complaints as long as one of her guys was with her … unless they wanted her to stay dressed._

_“No need to be hasty,” Steve had implored._

_Darcy could feel sunlight on her face, a bright beam peeking through the curtains in their bedroom. Usually both men were up before sunrise, more than happy to pound a few miles on the city streets before she even entertained the thought of getting out of bed. Not today. They were leaving today, some long-term assignment that was so hush-hush that even if Darcy wanted to know about it, they couldn’t tell her. So instead of humiliating Sam, they were with her. Naked. Gorgeous. Awake in more ways than one, given the persistent nudge against her lower back._

_“Happy to see me, Sarge?”_

_Her giggle turned into a sigh as nimble fingers explored her body, bringing her from sluggish to alert in seconds. She arched her back, giving Steve better access to her breasts while James slid two fingers inside her, expertly curling to hit that one spot that had her gasping. “That’s my good girl,” he murmured against her ear. “Let Stevie watch you come, baby. You know he likes that.”_

_She rode his fingers, the need to let go so strong, it was almost painful. James’ thumb brushed her clit and she gasped at the burst of pleasure that coursed through her. “More,” she demanded, pushing her ass against James, smirking at his low moan. Not so passive, are we? She didn’t want this to be one of those mornings when they made it their mission to drive her crazy, to get so close to getting her off before bringing her down and starting all over again. She wanted them inside her. She needed them inside her. “I’m so wet for you,” she breathed against Steve’s lips. “Dontcha wanna know how wet? You want to feel me while James fucks me, makes me come while you watch, knowing he won’t be far behind?”_

_Twin groans met her words. She ducked her head, nuzzling her face against Steve’s chest to hide her smile. She knew her boys, knew how to play them to get just what she wanted. They’d get her back for it later, of that she had no doubt, but as Steve brought one of her legs over his hip, the tip of James’ cock brushed her folds and she couldn’t bring herself to care._ _She kissed Steve as she stroked him; slow, lazy kisses that perfect matched James’ thrusts inside her. Steve’s hands weren't idle, his large fingers rubbing gentle circles between her thighs. She could do this forever. God, she would die a happy woman if they could do this all day. “All together,” she practically purred in-between kisses. “I want us all to come together.”_

_Her boys couldn’t resist a challenge._

“Darcy.”

The voice was low and calm. She tried to ignore it, too entranced by the dream to want to leave, but the voice was insistent.

“Come back to me, sweetheart.”

She opened her eyes. Reluctantly. She was in a bed. Steve’s bed. James’ bed. Steve was watching her, his blue eyes filled with concern, his forehead wrinkled with worry. She lifted her hand to smooth over his tan skin, the soft smile on her face easing the tension more than the soft rub of her thumb against his skin.

“Sorry,” he whispered, not wanting to wake James. “You moaned in your sleep. I thought you were having a nightmare.”

She shook her head, the image in her head the furthest thing from a nightmare.

“Not a bad dream?” Steve persisted.

She shook her head again. “Good dream. Really good dream.” She paused, remembering her shower dream; the dream she was now almost certain was a memory after seeing the master bathroom in their apartment. “Maybe a memory,” she hedged, not wanting to get Steve’s hopes up.

“Yeah?” He pulled her close to him, over him, her legs bracketing his body. She rested her chin on his chest, smiling when he pushed her hair away from her face, tucking dark curls behind her ears. “Feel like sharing?”

Part of her wanted to. He was in it, making it his memory, too, but another part of her wanted to keep it to herself, until she knew for sure what it was she was remembering. It was happening more, little pictures popping her head, usually when she was resting. She was pretty sure they were memories, none that filled in the all-too-many blanks spots in her life, but it made her feel like she was progressing. She considered telling Steve that, but she knew he’d want more. He’d ask questions she didn’t have the answers to, his desire to _fix_ everything so fervent, she’d feel like she was letting him down with every non-answer. “Maybe later?” she compromised.

He smiled in agreement, his fingers combing through her hair as she rested her cheek against him, the steady thump of his heartbeat slowly luring her back to sleep. “Steve?”

“Mmm?”

“Was it always like that?” She didn’t clarify the question, knew she didn’t have to. He knew her, knew what she was asking without saying the words. There was comfort in that, the kind of comfort that made not knowing almost bearable because one thing she did know was that he loved her. They loved her. And she was pretty sure she loved them in return. Not just past Darcy, but present Darcy as well.

“Every single time we're together is a miracle,” he told her.

* * *

 

The next time she woke up wasn’t to Steve’s voice or an erotic dream, but an annoying noise that sounded suspiciously like her father’s … yes, that was her father singing _Iron Man_. When did he change her ring tone? She learned years ago not to leave her electronics where he could find them!

“Someone make it stop,” James groaned into his pillow, though that didn’t stop his hands from wandering when Darcy leaned over him to grab her phone from the nightstand. She smacked them away with a laugh.

“Hello?” Darcy answered, cringing at how breathless she sounded. Yes, technically, she was a 26-year-old woman in a committed relationship, but that did not mean she was ready to flaunt just how committed that relationship was in her father’s face.

“Darcy.” Tony’s face appeared on her screen. Shit! She didn’t mean to go visual!

“Dad,” she replied, echoing her father’s somewhat serious tone while pulling the blankets higher over her body.

“Did you really think I’d fall for Pepper’s ‘Let’s have a romantic night out’ routine?”

Darcy winced. It was true teenage Darcy had made it a habit of coercing Pepper into keeping her father occupied on the nights she had social obligations with the opposite sex (for some reason it was OK for him to have a vast and varied sex life, but not her). She assumed now that Tony and Pepper were an actual couple, resurrecting a tried and true method would be even easier. “You didn’t have fun?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. Apparently the sexual double standard was still in place. “Can we please not do the father lecture this early in the morning?”

“It’s past 10.”

Darcy leaned over James to check the clock – she knew James and Steve were early risers; granted they had stayed up rather late the night before (and yeah, she was proud of that), but 10 seemed pretty excessive.

“Hey!” Tony cried. “I don’t want to see that!”

Darcy glanced at her phone screen. “It’s James’ back, Dad. I’m willing to bet you’ve seen it before.”

“Not when it’s in bed with my daughter!”

“Tony.” Steve took the phone with a long-suffering sigh. Darcy let him have it only because he had pulled on a T-shirt and was sitting against the headboard, looking nearly descent aside from the obvious sex hair. “Is there a reason you’re calling?”

“Yes. My daughter and I have plans.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you,” Darcy said, rolling over James so she could get out of the bed. That was going to take some getting used to. “Daddy-Daughter-Date-Day. Are we still going to Raoul’s?” she called out.

“If you can be ready in 30 minutes!” he yelled back, the two Starks steadfastly ignoring the others in the room. Pepper had warned Steve and James that that was normal and they’d get used to it.

“Can do!” she shouted before shutting the bathroom door closed. Tony disconnected without another word. Steve tossed the phone on the bed. Seconds later, Darcy stepped out of the bathroom, flannel pajamas on. She snatched James’ hoodie from the hook on the wall and shrugged into it. “I gotta run,” she said, her voice muffled around the hair tie clenched in her teeth and she swiftly finger combed her hair, pulling it into a messy ponytail. “Daddy-Daughter-Date-Day is sacred, as is Raoul’s soufflé apple pancake. I’ll see you later?” Not waiting for an answer, she leaned down to kiss James on the lips, circling the bed to do the same to Steve before grabbing her phone and rushing out of the room.

“How frequently do you think Stark will enact Daddy-Daughter-Date-Day?” James asked as Steve burrowed into his side.

“As often as he can.”

* * *

 

Darcy didn’t remember the last Daddy-Daughter-Date-Day -- Tony informed her it was before her sophomore year at Culver and involved getting kicked out of IKEA – but she knew she missed them. First they gorged themselves at Raoul’s Restaurant in SoHo, then Happy drove them to Sadelle’s so they could pick up bagels to take back to the tower. They were on their way when Darcy asked if they could swing by her auto shop.

“I haven’t been there yet. My business partner seems to have things covered, but I’d like to see it. Maybe it will spark something …” she said without much confidence. “Does that interest you?”

She understood that while technically Tony had never been to her shop, she’d have to be an idiot on top of having amnesia to actually believe that. She spent some time on the phone with her business partner, Mack, (who accepted her need for a sabbatical excuse so easily, she wondered if there was more to their partnership than she knew, but decided most of her life was already a fucking mystery, what was more missing piece?) and knew JARVIS sometimes sent Tony’s cars to her when his workload got too much to care for them proper. She also knew it was JARVIS who arranged for Steve to bring his bike in, a little tidbit she knew probably drove her father crazy. But it was one thing to know her dad had some inkling of her business and another to show it to him proper.

“I was the one who taught you how to change a car’s oil,” he said evenly.

“Better make sure that investment paid off, huh?” she shot back just as casually.

His smile was full of hope. She was pretty sure hers was just as dopey as Happy turned the limo towards West 37th.

* * *

 

She liked her shop. She poked around her office, Mack’s office and the garage. She peeked under a few hoods, even got her tools out to do a quick fix on one car, leaving a purple sticky Post-It for Mack on the car’s steering wheel. When Tony asked why there, she stopped. She had no idea why she left it there. It felt like the most obvious place. She wondered if that was something she did regularly. God, she hated not knowing!

Her frustration must have shown, because Tony quickly changed the subject, grabbing her hand and pulling her out of her shop and into the back of the limo, instructing Happy to go through the drive-thru of the nearest McDonalds. Minutes later, she was sipping on a chocolate shake, not quite happily, but a little less melancholy. She dug into her fries, grateful that her dad understood the importance of eating fast food in a car. It tasted better that way. Everyone know that – except Steve. He always insisted on waiting until he got home.

“What?” Tony asked, his own mouth full of food.

“Huh?”

“You got a look on your face,” he gestured his Big Mac her general direction. “Are you bummed you missed Shamrock Shake season? We can make one when we get home.”

Damn. Now she wanted a Shamrock Shake. “No, it’s … Can I tell you something?”

He raised an eyebrow, waiting.

“I get these … feelings, I guess; maybe flashbacks every now and then. Maybe they’re memories, maybe not. Their more like certainties. Like this, eating fast food in the car. Steve doesn’t do that. I can’t remember eating McDonalds with him, but I know we’ve argued about it before.”

Tony’s face remained passive. “Is this a bad thing?”

“No, it’s ... it's frustrating. If I’m going to get my memories back, I want them back! This trickle and dribble method is annoying!”

“You never were that patient.”

She snorted into her milkshake. “And you are the poster child for serenity.”

“Hey, I did yoga with Bruce! Once. For ten minutes. It was fucking boring!”

Darcy laughed and crammed another fry in her mouth. Tony leaned over and placed his hand on hers.

“You know as well as I do that the human brain is one of the most amazing and fucked up machines in the world. When you’re supposed to remember, you will.”

“What if I don’t?” She tried to hide her fear. Everyone was so convinced she’d break through whatever mental block her brain had built that she pretended to believe it, too, but in her darker moments, she worried that it might never happen. Then she worried about what did happen to create the block in the first place. Maybe she didn’t want to remember.

“Then you’ll make new memories; better memories. Hey, maybe you’ll decide to upgrade Things 1 and 2 for boyfriends who weren’t alive during the Depression!”

Just for that, Darcy stole his last French fry. “Nice try, Dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at this point in the story when I am ready for it to be OVER but I don't want to rush it and ruin things. Who can relate?


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few more chapters to go! The key now is wrapping things up without the story feeling rushed since I get the feeling that posting my story notes and outline and calling it good won't suffice. Ha!
> 
> For the record, though, this chapter is supposed to feel rushed and frantic -- lots of stuff happening!

Darcy weighed the tablet in her hands, shifting it from one palm to the other. It wasn’t hers; it was Steve’s. He’d left it on the coffee table in the commons area after Sam asked for his and James’ help testing his new wings. Both had hesitated, agreeing only when Darcy turned off the movie they’d been watching with promises that they could finish it at their place that night.

(She had not officially moved in with Steve and James, but she spent more time in their apartment these days -- and nights -- than her bedroom in the penthouse.)

She slid her finger over the screen. It came to life without a passcode. Either he was extremely naïve or there was some other technology at play. She touched a few folder icons. Some opened; others didn’t. OK, different tech. It was a StarkPad, which meant she could probably figure it out of she really wanted to, but she wasn’t interested in information Steve didn’t want to share. He had his reasons for keeping it from her. She respected that.

The folder simply titled _Darcy_ was different.

Her finger hovered over the icon. It could be pictures of her, pictures taken before her abduction; silly photos of her with Steve or James, or the three of them together. For all the jokes Tony made about their age, both were quite adept at modern-day technology. James was a text addict and Steve was all about correcting Wikipedia entries. Their long arms made them perfect at selfies, hence the dozens upon dozens James had of them on his phone.

But this wasn’t his personal tablet. This was work. Steve didn’t blur the lines between work and his personal life.

“Are you going to look?”

Darcy looked up at the redhead sitting in the chair across from her. She didn’t hear her enter, but that wasn’t surprising. She was a spy. She was trained to be silent. And deadly. Darcy fiddled with the bracelet on her wrist. Sometimes she forgot she was wearing it. Most of the time she didn't. Maybe she was deadly, too.

“It’s not my place.” She set the tablet on the coffee table, ignoring Natasha’s raised brow. She knew what the woman was saying, or not saying, actually. Steve wouldn’t leave intel out by mistake. He wanted her to see the photos. He wouldn’t make her, but he’d give her every opportunity to do so at her own pace. If she didn’t, he’d say nothing. If she did and didn’t tell him, he’d say nothing. If she did and broke down, he'd be there.

The man with the plan. She sometimes hated that about him.

“I don’t like you, do I?”

Natasha’s expression didn’t alter at the change in subject. "No.”

“Want to fill me in on why?”

The woman almost smiled. “I was assigned to monitor your father in the early stages of the Avengers Initiative, to see if he’d be a good fit for the team.”

Darcy propped her feet up on the coffee table. “You're the one that wrote that report? Congratulations; you nailed him.”

“What I didn’t include was the fact he was dying.”

Darcy’s feet slammed on the floor as she rose to her full height. “That was _you?!_ You knew his body was poisoning him and didn’t say anything?”

“That wasn’t my mission,” Natasha said calmly.

Darcy clenched her fists, her nails biting into the palm of her hands. She wouldn’t win in a fight against Natasha. Hell, even James had a hard time taking down the Black Widow and he helped train her! “I don’t give a fuck what your mission was! If you had information that could save him, you should have given it to him!"

“We did.”

“After he almost killed himself! He was more reckless than usual because he thought he was dying! He –“ Darcy broke off mid-sentence. She remembered the stunts Tony had pulled, the anger she felt watching him thrown himself into dangerous situations again and again, with no thought of his safety, of her. She convinced herself that he didn't care, that Iron Man was a bigger title than Dad. She remembered that. She remembered the resentment. The hurt. The fear that every time they fought, the words they shouted would be the last they'd ever say to each other.

_“Go ahead and destroy yourself if you think you have to, Dad. That doesn’t mean I have to sit around and watch.”_

“That’s one of the reasons I stopped talking to him,” she said quietly, her body falling heavily to the chair. She looked at her hands. They were shaking. “It wasn’t the last straw, but it was the beginning of the end.”

“I know. I apologize.”

Darcy’s laugh was bitter. She brushed away the tear coursing down her cheek. “You apologize. Great. Years of heartache magically disappears. Thank you for that.”

Natasha’s lips curved in something that might be a smile. “You’re so much like him. I still don’t understand how I didn’t see it.”

 “I guess even assassins have their off days.”

Natasha didn’t respond. Instead, she picked up Steve’s tablet, her fingers swift and sure over the screen. Darcy watched the woman’s face as her eyes narrowed on something, but her expression gave away nothing. “I approached you once before," she said as she worked. "Steve wanted us to meet. Before you, before Sam, I was the closest thing he had to a friend. It was important to him.”

“How’d that go?”

There was that almost smile again. “About as well as this. It caused your first fight as a couple. You wanted nothing to do with the Avengers. He assumed you meant Tony, but learned that included me and the others by default, but especially me."

“They say I’m friends with Thor,” Darcy said. She'd yet to meet the god, but from the stories she'd heard, snippets of memories she could recall, he sounded like someone she'd want on her side.

“You’re more like a sister to him. He gave Steve quite the talking to when he learned about the two of you," Natasha said. “And he was from before. You had more claim over him than I did – or Tony.” She set the tablet down just as Darcy’s chimed an alert. “I sent the folder to you. Steve won’t know if you don’t want him to. Look at the photos, don’t look at the photos; it’s your decision. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

She got up to leave. Darcy watched her go. “Natasha?” she called. The woman stopped but didn't turn around. “Is this your way of apologizing?”

She took a minute before answering. “Consider it my reset.”

* * *

It was amazing what one accepted as normal once they were used to a situation. Loving two men? Normal. Leaving in a phallic-shaped tower with said men – plus her dad, pseudo mother, pseudo therapist, omniscient AI and trained assassin? Normal. Seeing the colorful cast of characters leave to battle everything from robotic eels to drug cartels? Normal.

This was her life. She was done putting it on hold, waiting for something that may or may not happen. Time passed whether she remembered everything or not, and she’d lost too much already. More memories filtered their way through her mind, some fully formed and others just glimpses of how things used to be. She learned to trust them. Some made her sad. Most made her happy. A few gave her ideas that she reenacted with Steve and James, proving that sometimes the sequel _was_ better than the original. She shared carefully edited versions of her memories with Dr. Sampson. He told her he was pleased with her progress. She told him he played it fast and loose with the term “progress.”

She returned to work in a part-time capacity, usually after hours and always with Steve or James for company. She tackled projects Mack couldn’t get to on his own. She finally met the man in person, feeling an instant connection to the large man with an even bigger smile who spoke about cars like they were people. She downplayed her memory loss, falling back on severe concussion instead; an excuse he accepted with few questions.

It turns out sticky notes were their preferred form of communication.

She didn’t look at the folder Natasha sent to her tablet. Darcy told herself she didn’t need to see the pictures. She didn’t need to know what happened. She did, however, accept the woman’s offer to take over her self-defense training. She was tougher than Steve and James combined.

She was fine. She was safe. She had her work. She had her family. She had her boys. She was _normal_.

So of course that’s when the world imploded.

* * *

The thing no one tells you about memory loss is that when the brain decides it wants you to remember something, you have no control over it. Darcy didn’t mean to greet Clint by saying “Holy shit; we made out!” when the archer arrived at the tower after several months undercover, but she did, the man’s eyes going wide seconds before he was slammed against the wall, James' (thankfully flesh) hand around his throat.

“You kissed my girl?” he growled in a way that immediately made Darcy’s knees tremble, but she’d focus on that later. Right now she needed to save Clint. She tried to push past Steve’s bulk to do so, but then Natasha was on James’ back with his neck in a chokehold. That changed things. "Do I help Clint or James?"

“I find it’s best to let them sort it out on their own.” Sam picked up a magazine from the coffee table as if three Avengers trying to strangle each other was completely normal. Who knows? Maybe it was.

“My money’s on Romanoff,” Tony remarked, the fact that he muted _Family Feud_ the only sign that he was paying attention to the argument – apparently Clint had picked up enough Russian from Natasha to yell just as convincingly as the Soviet-trained assassins – in one corner of the communal floor. “For the record, baby girl, you could do better than Clint. He’s not as old as Mr. Freeze and Frozone, but he’s still up there in years. What’s that about, by the way? Are you scared to date within your generation? Daddy issues, maybe? Weigh in, Sam.”

“I’m not having that conversation with you.”

“I agree.” Darcy glared at Tony. “He’s not having that conversation with you.”

“Fine, fine. Be a cliché.” Tony finished his scotch as Clint managed to twist out of James’ grasp and slam him into the wall. Steve’s hand was pulling Clint back a second later. “You might want to intervene there, kiddo. As entertaining as this is, I promised Pepper a quiet evening.”

“You’re married!” Steve shouted at Clint.

“You’re married?!” Darcy screeched, diving into the fray. Her fist collided with Clint’s face, a spike of pain shooting up her arm upon contact. “Ow! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“That was not proper form,” Natasha told her.

“No fucking shit!” Darcy’s growl broke into a whimper as Steve lifted her hand in both of his, blue eyes intense as he carefully moved her fingers. She felt James at her back, his gaze just as focused as he watched Steve assure both of them that she was fine. The two men ignored Clint as he followed Natasha to the kitchen to get cleaned up, grumbling something about Cambodia giving a man a better welcome.

“This is why I don’t visit!” Clint announced as he settled on the couch, an ice pack pressed against his cheek.

“Maybe you should stop kissing another man’s girl,” James glared.

“Maybe you shouldn’t cheat on your wife!” Steve snapped.

“I wasn’t married when I met Darcy!”

“You weren’t?” Steve and Darcy asked together. James continued to glare at Clint.

“That was almost five years ago! I hadn’t even met Laura! Jesus, Rogers, you were still frozen!”

“This is hands down the best Family Night ever,” Tony grinned.

“Shut up, Dad,” Darcy warned.

“It’s disturbing how entertained you are by your daughter’s dating life,” Sam commented.

Tony shrugged. “We’re Starks. We’re fucked up.”

“Dad!” Darcy shouted.

“We never dated!” Clint yelled.

“You _used_ her?” James snarled.

“Jesus Christ, Barnes! First you’re pissed I kissed her, now you’re pissed that’s all I did?”

“That better be all you did!”

“OK, everyone stop!” Darcy got to her feet, arms out like she could freeze everyone in place. “Things are starting to get out of hand.”

“Starting to?” Clint echoed.

“Sorry,” she told him. “I’m starting to remember things and the brain to mouth filter doesn’t really kick in when it happens.”

“You didn’t have much of a brain to mouth filter before the amnesia, sweet cheeks,” Clint shot back.

“Ouch,” Darcy replied.

“Your left hook opened my stitches! You don’t get to say ouch!”

“I had no idea you two knew each other,” Steve broke in before Darcy could hit Clint again. As much as part of him wanted her to, he was the team leader.

“We met in New Mexico; you knew that,” Darcy told Steve.

“I did, but somehow the making out portion of your meeting was never mentioned.”

Darcy crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged her shoulders.

_“Jane!”_

_Silence met Darcy’s wail of boredom._

_“Jane! Janieeeee!”_

_“Oh my God!” The man keeping watch in the corner of Jane’s lab finally cracked. Darcy cackled in glee as he stomped over to her. “What does a man have to do to shut you up?”_

_Darcy let her eyes roam over him slowly. He was decked in SHIELD-issued black, but there was something about him that was more than all the other thugs traipsing in and out of Jane’s makeshift lab._

_“You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” he asked with a resigned sigh._

_Darcy hopped off her desk and grabbed her purse. “Guess you’re about to find out!”_

“We hung out,” she explained to the group at large. “It was after Thor hopped on the rainbow bridge back to Asgard. Jane was determined to get him back, so she was nothing but work. I still didn’t have my iPod. Erik was just beginning his super-secret SHIELD mission. Clint was the only one I could talk to.”

“You’re good for my ego, Darce; I ever tell you that?” Clint mocked.

She shot the man a grin. “We were buddies. Bros.”

“Who made out,” Steve said in a tight voice.

“Once,” Darcy told him. “Just once. And it was after a lot of drinking. I think tequila was involved.”

“Oh Darcy,” Tony tutted in disappointment. “You know better than that.”

“As do you,” Natasha said to Clint.

“Relax,” he assured her. “I was off duty. I was assigned to watch Foster, not Darcy. Nothing happened … you know, beyond the whole ‘making out’ deal which we had agreed would remain in the vault,” he finished with a pointed look at Darcy.

“Yeah, well, things are just kind of spilling out these days. Sorry.”

Clint shrugged, his look of nonchalance cracking slightly when Natasha took his chin in her hand to study the cut on his cheek. “You’ll live,” she said flatly.

“The women in my life are such coddlers,” he muttered. “Long story short, we got drunk, got a little friendly and decided it wasn’t for us. I went back to SHIELD, she went to Norway and a year later I met Laura. It was a special circumstances only kind of thing; we didn’t stay in touch.”

“Like making a friend at summer camp,” Sam interjected. He was met with several blank looks. “Really? None of you ever went to camp? Not even you, Darcy?” She shook her head. “Alright. Never mind. Carry on, Clint.”

“Nothing more to say. I had no idea she was the girl Cap was mooning over when I set up that surveillance. Crazy coincidence and all that.”

“I never told you?” Darcy asked Steve. He shook his head. “Huh. Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, I made out with Clint.” She leaned over and gave Steve a kiss on the cheek before turning to James to repeat the gesture. “Phew! I’m glad that’s out of the way! Who’s hungry?”

A clap of thunder and a flash of lightning greeted her words, the room illuminating with power before Darcy felt herself lifted in a hug.

“Lady Darcy! I have returned with great news!” Thor boomed, unaware of the tension in the room as he twirled Darcy around in a circle. “The priestess has declared you and your loved ones to be worthy!”

“I'm what? Huh?” Darcy stumbled out of Thor’s hold, her head spinning from his enthusiastic greeting. She caught sight of a petite brunette standing behind the sofa, a somewhat distracted look on her face. “Jane?”

That seemed to pull the scientist out of her reverie. “Darcy!" She rushed forward, throwing her arms around her. "I have so much to tell you! You will not believe what’s happened since we left for Asgard.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna top whatever you tell me.”

“Yes, yes, it will be a night of great conversation,” Thor rumbled as he looked around the room with a delighted smile. “I am pleased to see all of you together, especially my lightning sister with her father. You must be so honored, Tony, that the priestess has agreed to bless Darcy’s union.”

“What?” Tony shouted as he jumped to his feet.

“I was just as gratified when I learned of the news,” Thor continued, not seeing the increasingly desperate and frantic looks Steve and James were shooting his way, Steve going so far as to wave his arms in the universal signal for “Shut up now!” – a signal that even AllSpeak could not translate. Or maybe Thor was too excited to pay attention. “Never has a Midgardian union been blessed by my people before. It will be a ceremony unlike any other!”

Darcy’s head was pounding. She didn’t know if it was from the excitement of Thor’s return, the reveal of Clint and hers shared past, or something else. She wanted it to stop, but first she wanted to know what they hell Thor was babbling about. “What ceremony?”

Thor picked her up and spun her around again. “Your wedding!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who had the better entrance: Clint or Thor?


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously my muse for this story has returned from wherever she disappeared to last month. Welcome back! I'm still looking at 20 chapters total for this, which means lots to cover once the whole engagement thing gets sorted ...
> 
> Oh, and the Mack I reference as Darcy's business partner is Mack from SHIELD. I like to think Coulson arranged that to keep an eye on Darcy when Tony couldn't.

Darcy slammed the jar of pasta sauce on the granite countertop; it was a miracle it didn’t shatter. She hated jarred sauce. It went against everything she believed in, but she was hungry, stressed and on the edge. She needed something to keep her hands occupied or else she’d gladly strangle the men watching her warily from across the living room.

Wedding. Marriage. As in a fancy dress, organ music, “I do” and “’Til death parts us.” This was something they had talked about, maybe even planned. She wasn’t opposed to the idea, but dammit, she at least wanted to _know_ _about it_!

She took a spoonful of the ricotta and Romano cheese filling she’d mixed minutes before and stuffed it one of the oversized pasta shells cooling on the counter. “Is it true? Are we really engaged or is Thor sputtering nonsense after one too many ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ moments?”

Steve avoided looking at James. Darcy was annoyed by their non-verbal conversations on the best of days. One wrong move now could destroy everything.

“It’s true,” James confirmed.

Darcy dumped half of the pasta sauce in a glass casserole dish. The cheese-stuffed shells followed. “Since when?”

Steve really wished she’d stop talking to the food and look at them. “Feb. 13.”

She snorted. “You didn’t want to be a Valentine’s Day cliché?”

“You hate Valentine’s Day.”

“I hate being lied to, too.”

“We didn’t lie to you, doll,” James snapped. He’d been on edge since Clint’s arrival. Thor’s appearance was just the topper on a suddenly shitty evening. He didn’t need false accusations on top of it. “Did you ever once ask if we were engaged?”

Even though it was not directed at him, Steve still flinched at Darcy’s icy glare. James held her gaze, his face blank. The silence in the apartment was almost deafening. It went on for more than a minute before Darcy blinked with a frustrated huff. She tore open a bag of shredded mozzarella cheese and spread it over the shells, ignoring James’ knowing smirk.

“Sweetheart,” Steve tried, “you didn’t know who we were. You looked at us like we were strangers.”

“I wanted to tell you the truth,” James broke in.

“I wanted to, too, but you looked so scared. Saying we were your boyfriends …” Steve rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “I don’t know, it seemed easier.”

“Easier?” Darcy repeated.

“Less heavy,” Steve amended.

_“I want my dad!” Darcy shouted – or tried to shout._

_“Easy,” Dr. Waters soothed, tapping a button to raise the upper part of Darcy’s bed so she was sitting up. “I’ll have your father notified that you’re awake and want to see him. In the meantime, keep drinking water. It will help your voice more than anything.” She started walking out the door._

_“Wait!” Darcy cried, again her voice sounding louder on her head. “Why are you leaving me with them?” she asked, gesturing to the two men. The doctor looked confused, her brown eyes narrowing as she made her way back to Darcy’s bed. The two men glanced at each other, equally flabbergasted._

_“You don’t recognize them?” the doctor asked._

_Darcy considered the question carefully as she studied the two men. Tall. Built. Hot. She wished she knew them, but life wasn’t that kind. “No,” she answered, not missing the pained look that crossed Blondie’s face. Chinny looked pissed, but that didn’t scare her. Somehow she knew he wasn’t mad at her. “Should I?”_

_“I’d say so,” Chinny answered before Dr. Waters could. “We’re your -- "_

_"Boyfriends," Blondie finished quickly with a sharp look at the other man. "We're your boyfriends.”_

Darcy ran her knife through the fresh basil. “How’d you do it?”

Steve took a cautious step forward. He wished Natasha hadn’t added knife-throwing to Darcy’s training schedule. “How’d we do what?”

“Propose.”

Steve did look at James that time. The brunette shook his head, his lips curved in a mocking grin.

“Tell me!” Darcy demanded.

“We had a plan,” Steve started, ignoring Darcy’s eye roll. “We were going to have dinner at your favorite restaurant, the one on 42nd with the dancing. I was even going to take a chance with you on the floor.”

“I made him practice,” James interrupted. “I wasn’t going to risk him stumbling over your feet the whole time.”

“Afterwards,” Steve continued as if James has never spoken, “we were going to walk to the diner for dessert. We had worked it out with Nicky to get the last slice of cherry pie. We were going to ask you there …” He trailed off. It sounded silly now that he said it out loud, but that diner and that pie was the beginning of them as a couple, eventually a trio. He let James have the romance of the restaurant and dancing, but he wanted the simplicity of their first meeting because that’s what they were. Romance and flash, comfort and simplicity.

“That sounds lovely,” Darcy admitted.

“It would’ve been, but we got called for a mission,” James clasped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. It was the only time he’d seen Steve hesitate before reporting for duty. “We were gone three weeks.”

Darcy did the math. “You were going to propose on our anniversary?” They nodded. “What was your backup plan?” They didn’t answer. “What? You’re telling me the ‘Man with a Plan’ didn’t have Plan B in his back pocket?”

James started laughing. “He choked before we even discussed it, doll.”

“I didn’t choke!” Steve protested.

James ignored him, skirting around the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room to pull Darcy in his arms. She didn’t melt against him like she usually did. He ignored it and pressed on. “The punk was so nervous, he asked you seconds after we walked in the front door.”

_She heard the click of the door, followed by two pairs of heavy feet._

_“Darcy?”_

_She ran down the stairs and jumped into Steve’s arms, her own reaching out for James to pull him into a Darcy-Steve-James sandwich. She tried to get her legs around both men, but she was short and Steve’s lips were already distracting her. “Missed you,” she managed to get out between kisses._

_“Missed you so much, baby,” Steve murmured, his lips trailing down her neck, his fingers working the buttons of her top to reveal more skin for him to taste. “Hate leaving you, Darce. Want to stay with you, the three of us together always.” He sucked at a particularly sensitive spot on her collarbone. His mark would stay on her for days. He loved that. “Marry us.”_

_She almost didn’t hear him, her senses more in tune with the feel of two warm bodies before her brain latched on to Steve’s words. “Wait -- what?”_

_James groaned, moving around Steve to lift Darcy away from him. He knew Steve was going to fuck this up. He’d been jittery throughout the debrief, the nerves he’d displayed leading up to their proposal, nerves he had pushed aside long enough to complete their mission, back in full force once he didn’t have work to distract him. “We wanted to surprise you,” he told Darcy who was staring at them as if they’d grown a second set of heads. “We wanted to do this right, give you a story you could tell the grandkids someday, but Steve’s shit with pretty dames. You know that.”_

_“You want to marry me?” She whipped her head from James to Steve. “Both of you?”_

_“I’m not letting him have you all to himself,” James asserted._

_“I saw her first,” Steve shot back in a familiar argument that usually ended with the three of them play fighting before moving on to other games._

“I said yes to _that_?”

James threaded his fingers through Darcy’s hair, framing her face with his hands. “After I made him get down on one knee with me, you said yes. You were laughing the entire time and tackled us to the floor after, but yeah, you said yes.”

Darcy looked down at her hands. Her nails were painted hot pink. There was a _Little Mermaid_ bandage wrapped around the index finger on her right hand. Other than that, her hands were bare.

“Give her the ring,” James ordered.

Steve joined them in the kitchen, moving the knife and cutting board to the sink before pulling something from his pocket. He held it out, the solitaire diamond sparkling under the kitchen’s light.

It was a simple ring. The sales clerk had called it classic. Darcy through it was perfect.

“I can’t accept it,” Darcy said robotically, unable to tear her eyes from the ring, missing the panicked look Steve gave James.

“Care to repeat that?” the dark-haired man asked.

She looked up, her expression apologetic. “I’m sorry. I know I said yes before. Well, I don’t _know_ that, but you told me I did and I believe you, but …” She looked down at the ring again. It was so pretty! She was not a frills and flash sort of girl. They knew that. They understood that. They chose the only ring she’d ever want to wear forever and ever. “I don’t wear rings,” she said suddenly.

Steve set the ring on the counter. He couldn’t continue to hold it out, knowing Darcy wasn’t going to accept it. “Not when you’re working; no,” he confirmed. “You always took it off before you left for work.”

It was true, jewelry and mechanics did not make for a safe combination. Even wearing the ring on a chain around her neck could be dangerous.

“You’d make one of us slide it back on your finger when you got home. Sometimes we had to get down on one knee again,” James chuckled. “Depended on the day.”

Darcy smiled. That sounded like something she’d do. “Have you been carrying it around this whole time?”

Steve looked at James. “We took turns. It was something to hold on to while you were … gone.”

“What’s it gonna take for it to be back on your finger where it belongs?” James demanded, hating the defeated slump of Steve’s shoulders and uncertainty on Darcy’s face. He was not going to stand by and let the people he loved most in the world keep him from something he knew they all wanted. She wanted them to jump through hoops? Tell him how high. She wanted romance? He’d be back with roses and champagne and chocolates in 20 minutes. She needed more than an Asgardian blessing? He’d go anywhere she wanted, do anything she asked.

“Get Tony’s blessing.”

“Fuck me,” he breathed.

“I know!” Darcy wrapped her arms around them, burying her face in-between where their shoulders were pressed together. “You didn’t do it last time and I get that, but those were different circumstances.” She looked up, blue eyes pleading for understanding. “We’ve come such a long way. Just the other day you called me beautiful because I was so happy.”

“And we meant it,” Steve promised.

“Having a relationship with my dad again is part of that,” Darcy told them. “I missed him so much. _We_ missed so much. It would mean the world to me if you made him part of this.”

“We asked Thor’s permission,” James tried to barter. “Does that count for something?”

Darcy balanced on her tiptoes to place a soft kiss on James’ lips. “It does. Thank you.”

Steve’s face was resigned. “But it’s not enough?” She shook her head. She still looked apprehensive, but there was a sparkle he couldn’t identify in her eyes. His own narrowed as he studied her. “Is this revenge for Thor’s outburst?”

“Now why would I do that?” Darcy kissed him before turning to pick up the casserole dish and slide it in the oven. She set the timer, glancing over her shoulder at two super soldiers who looked like they much rather be storming a Hydra cell. “You’ve got 35 minutes. Invite Dad and Pepper to dinner when you’re done. I’ll make sure there’s enough food.”

“That might not be enough time,” Steve warned.

Darcy picked up the ring and held it out to him. “That’s why you’ll invite him to dinner. If he decides to be an ass -- and we all know he will be so why bother pretending otherwise -- Pepper and I will gang up on him.”

James tucked the ring in his pocket. “This mean you’re gonna say yes again?”

Darcy cocked her head to the side. “If you can get through that conversation with Tony and still want to marry me.”

James pulled her to him. "Always gonna want to marry you, doll.” His arm shot put, grabbing Steve by the arm and dragging him close. “The three of us together. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Darcy ran her hands down their backs, smacking their oh-so-perfect asses playfully, “That’s the spirit! Go get ‘em!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone notice who's yet to make an appearance in this story? Hint: it means something to the plot!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've accomplished so very little at work this week. Shh! Don't tell anyone!

“NO!”

Pepper winced as Tony slammed his glass on their Nebula Coffee Table, but by some miracle, it withstood his fury. She kept Arktura on speed dial. Just in case.

“I will not allow it! I forbid it! _And_ I forbade it! I forbid and forbade it.” He picked up the glass and drained the last drops. “It is forbidden!”

Pepper picked up the crystal tumbler and carried it to the sink behind the bar, letting Tony continue a rant that was spirited enough without the continual consumption of scotch. He watched her through narrowed eyes, knowing exactly what she was doing. She was going to let him rage on and wear down. Then she’d sit next to him for a calm and rational conversation. Well, fuck that. Capsicle and Casanova wanted to marry his little girl! They asked her without his say so! And Point Break secured some fancy-schmancy magical being to _bless_ this supposed happy event? No. No, no, no, no, no.

“Sir, Captain Rogers and Sargent Barnes wish to speak with you.”

Tony opened his mouth to tell Jarvis to tell _them_ to fuck off, but Pepper beat him to the punch. “Jarvis, please tell Steve and James Tony will be ready to see them in a minute.”

“No, I won’t,” he said mulishly as Pepper pulled him to his feet, brushing nonexistent lint from his T-shirt.

“Yes, you will.”

“No,” he jerked away from her. “In fact, I want them out of my tower. Today. Right now.” Pepper walked to the door. “I mean it! They’re out of here!”

Pepper turned. “If you do that, Tony, Darcy will follow. She will plant her feet and refuse to speak to you until you see sense, and because you are just as stubborn as she is, that will lead to another estrangement that, frankly, my heart can’t take.” She shook her head. “Not again.”

Tony slouched against the arm of the couch. “Why them?” he asked. “Why did it have to be them?”

“She loves them.”

“They’re fucked up, Pep. Like me-level fucked up.”

Pepper’s smile was soft, but more mischievous than sympathetic. “Girls tend to fall for men that remind them of their father.”

Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “If you’re trying to butter me up, it’s not working.”

She approached him, this time her around going around him in comfort. “She’s your daughter, Tony, but she’s _mine_ , too. As her parents, it’s our job to make sure she is happy. Steve and James make her happy. They are coming here to talk to you because that will make Darcy happy. Please, for her and for me, stop refusing to see that the three of you have so much in common, the most important of which is Darcy’s happiness.”

Tony sighed and buried his face in the crook of Pepper’s neck, breathing in the soft floral scent of her perfume. “For the record, I always knew she was yours, too.” He pulled back, his familiar smirk back in place. “All yours; not just twelve percent.”

He’d tell himself the way she kissed him after slapping the side of his head was worth it. Right now, though, his ears were definitely ringing as Pepper opened the door for Steve and James.

“Tony.”

Steve’s back was straight, face blank, his hands at his side at perfect parade rest because of course Captain America would look perfect when approaching the man whose daughter he wanted to marry. Tony shifted his gaze to Barnes. For some reason, his angry scowl made him feel better.

“No,” Tony told them.

Pepper thumped her head against the door jam.

* * *

 

“No!” Jane cried. “You do not get to waltz in here, announce you were abducted, tell me you have amnesia and though it’s getting better, you still think your brain is on par with Swiss cheese, and then announce that you need to take dinner out of the oven!”

“But it’s going to burn!” Darcy yelled. “Do you want my first dinner with my parents and my fiancés to be a disaster? Is that what you want, Jane? Some story they’ll bring up every time we get together for dinner from now until the end of time that makes me feel like crap?”

“Maybe you’ll get kidnapped again and forget it,” Clint offered.

Natasha smacked him.

“Christ, Nat!” He rubbed the back of his head. “I mean it; I’m never visiting again! Next time you guys need someone to take the high point, call someone else.”

“Poor Clint,” Darcy cooed. “Want me to kiss it and make it all better?”

“No!” He jumped to his feet. “No more kissing! In fact, never speak to me! This conversation never happened!” He rushed out of the room, Natasha following at a slower pace. Darcy wasn’t certain, but it almost looked like she was smiling. She turned to Sam who looked just as amazed.

Jane, meanwhile, was still trying to come to terms with Darcy’s self-titled “The last few months of my life in five minutes or less” monologue. She slumped to the floor, all stories about her experiences on Asgard while Thor completed tasks to secure the blessing for Darcy’s marriage forgotten. “How can you joke about it?” she finally asked.

Darcy shrugged. “’Cause that’s what I do?” She knelt on the floor in front of Jane, taking the woman’s hands in her own. “Look, I’ve gone through all the stages. Anger. Denial. Grief. I can’t change what happened. All I can do now is deal with what I’ve been given and make the most of it which, from where I’m standing – not right now ‘cause we’re kneeling, but in general – isn’t too shabby. Have you seen Steve’s butt? Not to mention what James can do with that arm of his!”

“Darcy!”

“What?! I’ve listened to you wax poetic about Thor’s abs!” She glanced up at the man standing behind Jane, his arms crossed over his chest. His face was dark and closed off. “I didn’t mind,” she told him.

He wasn’t amused. “Who took you?”

Darcy looked beseechingly at Sam. “Seriously?” the man asked.

“You know who stole Lady Darcy?”

“No!” Sam took a few steps back. He really needed to reconsider shelling out the bucks for his own apartment. Free rent was not worth all of this – even in Manhattan! “I … come on, man! I’m just here, listening to her talk, being a friend. The doctors told us she’ll remember everything when she’s ready to. Until then, we let her do what she wants.”

“See?” Darcy squeezed Jane’s hands. “It’s all good. And what I want is to finish getting dinner ready because if I’m going to go head-to-head with Dad about my amazing Asgardian-approved wedding, I’m going to need my strength.” She got to her feet, tugging Jane up with her. She hugged her tight, feeling that same sense of comfort, familiarity and affection she washed over her when she used to hug Steve or James – not that she still didn’t feel that way, but things had progressed to where she felt other things, too. Fun things. Dirty things. Not-suitable-in-front-of-family things.

She really hoped dinner wouldn’t take forever.

“We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?”

“ _Really_ talk.” Jane commanded.

“I concur with my Jane,” Thor echoed. “I wish to know more about your incident and why I was not informed sooner.”

“Fine,” Darcy sighed, grateful for whatever reprieve she was granted.

* * *

 

Jarvis, bless him, had turned the oven temperature to low. Darcy carefully removed the casserole, letting it cool on the counter as she finished setting the table in the never-used dining room just off the kitchen, the three of them usually eating in the kitchen or, most often, on the couch in front of the TV, though there was that one afternoon they enjoyed hot fudge sundaes in the bedroom.

“Miss Darcy, your father will be here in 60 seconds.”

“Thanks, J!” Darcy called out, shaking away the image for another time. She plunked the oversized salad bowl in the middle of the table, followed by a basket full of garlic bread, then stuffed shells. She’d just finished pouring the wine when the apartment door opened, James walking in first. He grabbed Darcy, kissed her roughly on the mouth and stomped to the bedroom. Steve’s greeting was a lot gentler, though the way he held himself made it obvious things were still unsettled. He was tense, the planes of his body stiff. She loved it when he got all stubborn and stupid, and refused to back down from a fight.

“How’d it go?”

He rolled his eyes and pulled out a chair for Pepper before doing the same for Darcy. He gestured to the head of the table for Tony before seating himself opposite him. James entered a few seconds later, taking the seat next to Darcy. His hair was damp, like he’d just ducked his head under the sink to cool off – which meant he probably did.

“This looks amazing, Darcy,” Steve announced.

Pepper’s tone was less forced. “It really does; thank you.”

James’ hand on her thigh, giving it a quick squeeze was his version of a compliment. Tony said nothing. The silence stretched as plates were filled, the scraping of knives and forms on china the only sound for several minutes. Darcy caught Pepper’s eyes. The older woman shook her head minutely, then pressed her lips together in a familiar mannerism that meant “Be patient.”

Darcy sucked at being patient. She tossed her napkin on her plate and pushed away from the table, her chair crashing to the floor as she jumped to her feet. “What happened?”

Tony followed suit, practically mirroring Darcy. “I forbid you from marrying them!”

“You _forbid_ me?”

“Forbade you!”

She stalked around the table. “And how do you plan to do that, hmm? Last I checked, I’m 26 years old with my own business, own money and own apartment! You want to forbid me from being with the men I love? Fine! I forbid you from being with Pepper!”

Several forks clattered to their plates. “Darcy?” Pepper asked.

“What?” She balled her hands together in tight fists, resting them on her hips. “I’ve known he’s been in love with you since the day you entered our lives – and you’ve loved him even when you wanted to kill him! I had to watch the two of you go back and forth for years, Dad sleeping with anything that had two legs and one hole – “

“Language!” Tony shouted.

“ – and you pretending stuffed shirts, theatre tickets and wine tastings were more to your liking!” She whirled around to face the woman she loved like a mother. More than a mother, actually. Pepper was her idol, her confidante, the female perspective she so desperately needed when she was a girl surrounded by men. “I love you, Pepper. I am so, so glad you and Dad are together, but if he’s going to be an ass and not support me and the men I’ve chosen to love, then I won’t support him.” She picked up her chair and took her seat. “Your move, Mr. Stark.”

Tony looked at his daughter. He looked at Pepper. He looked at how James gawked at Darcy, like she was the most amazing woman he’d ever seen, while Steve was flabbergasted, plain and simple. They had no idea what they were getting into with her.

This was going to be fun.

“You could do so much better than World War II veterans, baby girl.”

Darcy batted her eyes at him. “You got a lead on any World War I veterans?”

“Darcy,” Steve groaned.

She started laughing. “Don’t interrupt, soldier. It’s bargaining time.” She gestured for Tony to retake his seat. He did, elbows on the table as he leaned forward, his eyes locked with Darcy’s. Neither one spoke, but it was obvious there was a conversation taking place.

“Here’s what I want.” Tony leaned back in his chair. “Number one: weekly Daddy-Daughter-Date-Days.”

Darcy tilted her head. “Agreed.”

“Two. Family dinners, the five of us, also weekly.”

James sighed and slouched in his seat. Steve reached out and took Darcy’s hand. “Done,” she replied.

“Three -- extended family dinners. I’m talking all the Avengers, including Bruce if he ever returns, and their significant others, if applicable.”

“Is this weekly, too?”

Tony considered the question. “Bi-weekly. To start.”

Darcy inclined her head. “I concur.” She turned to Steve. “It was wrong of me to force you to keep your work and personal life separate. I know there’s going to be things you can’t tell me, or won’t tell me, but I shouldn’t have put you into a position where you felt you couldn’t tell me anything. Either of you.” She put her hand over James’, her other still dwarfed by Steve’s. “I’m still not comfortable with nearly everyone I know bring a superhero of some kind – part of me really thinks Mack knows more than he lets on – but I’m not going to hide anymore.”

Steve and James stood at the same time, their hands drawing Darcy to her feet. She kissed Steve, murmuring apologies against his lips, words he dismissed with a shake of his head and whispers of love, before she turned to James. “Can you live with all that?”

He smiled, first at her, then at Steve, and back to Darcy. “You told me once you and Steve were a package deal. Seems to fit that marrying you two means extending the package.”

“Not so fast, Robocop!” Tony interrupted as he circled the table to help Pepper to her feet. He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close. “You’ve still got to ask her. Give her the memory, with witnesses. In fact, Jarvis! Start recording.”

“Sir, my privacy protocols do not allow me to record in Captain Rogers’ and Sergeant Barnes’ quarters.”

“Override Stark, Anthony. ECHO, BRAVO – “

“Dad!” Darcy laughed. “It’s OK. I’ll remember this one.”

“Yeah, you will,” Steve grinned, getting down on one knee. James rolled his eyes, more for Tony’s sake than anyone else, and pulled the ring out of his pocket before he got down on one knee, too.

Darcy looked down at the two faces looking up at her with so much love in their eyes that she couldn’t help it. She started giggling. She pressed her hands to her lips to try to keep it in, but it didn’t help.

“If I didn’t know you well enough to know that means you’re happy, I’d be having a complex right now,” Steve told her.  

“Save the complex for when she bitches about turning thirty the same year you blow out 100 candles,” Tony chirped.

“Dad! They’re including you in this moment for me. Be good!”

Tony mimed zipping his mouth shut and locking it. Pepper plucked the imaginary key from his fingers and tossed it over her shoulder.

“See that?” Darcy asked the men kneeling before her. “That’s what I want. True partnership.”

“We can do that,” James told her.

“Every day,” Steve promised.

“Deal,” she replied.

“Marry us?” Steve asked, his lips quirking up at James’ groan, and Tony’s protest that it was not a proper question and therefore didn’t count.

“Yes!” she cried, waiting until James slid the ring on her finger before she tackled them both.

Pepper took Tony’s hand and led him out of the apartment. They were quiet as they walked down the silent hall to the elevator, hand-in-hand. “When are we going to tell her?” Pepper asked as the elevator doors slid close.

Tony tucked a finger under the thin silver chain around Pepper’s neck, drawing it up slowly, loving the way her breath broke as it brushed against her skin, until the large diamond ring that dangled from it was visible. He palmed it, the rock warm from where it had nestled between Pepper’s breasts. “I’m willing to bet she already knows.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love reading about romance, but I suck at writing it. Sorry!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I upped the chapter count because this chapter deviated from my plot just a bit, but I liked it, so I'm keeping it.
> 
> Spring break! Really hoping to have this story finished by Monday!

Jane barely glanced at Darcy when she walked into the lab, her focus on the laptop in front of her as tiny fingers danced over the keyboard. Her nails were bitten to the quick, a sure sign that she’d been at it all night. She picked up the coffee cup Darcy sat next to her computer without breaking stride, downing half before setting it down again.

Some people called Jane a ditz. She was brilliant, of that there was no doubt, but when she was caught up in her work, _she was caught up in her work_. She wasn’t ditzy; she was _focused_. She couldn’t be bothered to bathe or eat or even sleep when there were discoveries to be made and space time continuums to disrupt, so forget trying to engage her in conversation when her mind was obviously elsewhere.

Resigned to killing time while Jane finished whatever she was doing, Darcy got situated on one of the empty lab tables, letting her legs swing as she sipped her own coffee and opened the Words With Friends app on her tablet. Beaconed. 179 points. Sam was not playing around.

“So,” Jane pushed her laptop away, bones cracking as she stood to stretch. “Let’s talk about this.”

Darcy set her tablet to the side. “Talk about what?”

Jane wheeled two oversized whiteboards along the floor until they were right in front of Darcy. Familiar with the woman’s particular form of chicken scratch, Darcy was able to sort through what others would consider gibberish with no trouble. _“You’re CSI-ing my kidnapping?”_

“Yes.” Jane picked up a red dry erase marker.

“Janie, I love you, but there are people looking into this with a little more experience than you.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I love _Veronica Mars_ as much as the next girl and totally gave more money than I’ll ever admit to the movie’s Kickstarter, but I don’t think –“

“This is the information I pulled from the official report,” Jane pointed to one board.

“What? How’d you –“

She pointed to the other board. “This is the information I pulled from the doctors’ reports.”

“Jane –“

“And this,” she flipped one board around, “is a rough calculation of the memories you’ve gotten back based on your notes –“

“You read my journal?” It wasn’t officially a journal, no Dear Diary or anything like that, but Dr. Sampson had suggested she keep track of her memories as they appear, including feelings and emotions associated with them.  

Something in her voice must have cracked through Jane’s one-track mind because she actually put the marker down. “Yes.”

“When? Why? How did you –“

“I broke into your tablet,” Jane turned back to the board, unconcerned with Darcy’s gasp of indignation. “Same thing with the reports.”

“Jane!”

“What?”

“You can’t do that!”

Jane gestured to the boards. “Pretty sure this proves I can.”

“But … but …” Darcy sputtered, trying to find some way to condemn Jane for doing something she knows she taught her to do. Oh my God, _she_ taught Jane how to break into government files! Oh my God, _she_ broke into the New Mexico DMV computer system to create a fake ID for Thor! Oh my God, _she_ was a criminal mastermind!

She was so fucking cool!

“Ha!” Jane crowed, taking a blue marker and coloring in a circle on one of the boards. “You just remembered all the times you did the same thing!”

Darcy drank her coffee, stalling. Breaking into things was wrong. The little voice in her head telling her so soundly like a combination of Steve and Pepper. The voice cheering her on sounded like James. Not Tony. That was odd. She figured Tony would be the biggest supporter of her non-law-abiding actions.

“Why?” Darcy asked. “Why did you do all this?”

Jane leaned heavily against the table, looking spent and exhausted – and guilty. “Because I know you,” she said. “You avoid anything that makes you uncomfortable, from wearing heels to confronting Tony.”

The urge to protest was automatic, but Jane’s look made Darcy close her mouth.

“You probably don’t remember, but I was the first person you called after Steve and James proposed – the first time.” Jane hopped up on the table next to Darcy. She picked up her hand and played with the ring on Darcy’s finger. “You were crying, happy tears, but then we met for drinks and you started crying because you didn’t want to get married without Tony being part of it.” Jane shifted until she was facing Darcy. “You cried over him a lot, Darcy. You hated being estranged from him, but would shut down anytime I tried to get you to talk to him. It got to the point where I was afraid you’d cut me out of your life if I didn’t back off!”

“I wouldn’t do that!”

“Like I’d even let you,” Jane snorted. “Anyway,” she continued, her tone brisk as she turned her attention back to the board, “I get why everyone is taking the hands-off approach during your recovery – the human brain is fragile – but you’ve got them wrapped around your fingers to the point where they’ll let you live the rest of your life not knowing what happened.”

“No, they –“

“Please.” Jane hopped off the table. “Do you know what Steve and James are doing right now? They’re getting their asses kicked by Thor!”

She thought they said they were sparring. “Huh?”

“Asgardian customs don’t allow Midgardians to complete the tasks necessary to secure a priestesses’ blessing. Thor did it in their stead, but now they need to prove to him that they are worthy of his feat by completing a task of his choosing.”

“He chose to beat them up?”

“He chose to fight them,” Jane corrected. “OK, he probably wants to beat them up a little, but that’s more to do with his anger about what happened to you.”

“Steve and James had nothing to do with it!”

“I know, but your Thor’s shield sister and he tasked them with protecting you.”

“But –“

“He’s not handling this well, Darcy. Let him deal with it his way, OK?”

“But –“

“He won’t hurt them. Much." She bit her lip, looking slightly worried. "They heal super-fast, right?”

Her life was insane. Officially. She was in a lab that looked like something out of the _Mission: Impossible_ set watching her former boss and best friend calmly discuss the ass kicking her fiancés were being dealt by a Norse god. “This is crazy.”

“Probably," she said with a shrug, "but I got through it; they will, too.”

Now it was getting interesting. “You got beat up?”

“No! Sif completed my tasks for me and then I had to prove myself worthy to her feat.”

“She didn’t kick your ass?”

Jane looked at Darcy like she had grown a second head. “The Asgardians choose the method,” she repeated. “Sif challenged me to a drinking game. We hit this little dive in L.A. and I drank her under the table.”

That made sense. Jane was tiny, but she had the alcohol capacity of, well, Steve. Except tequila. Tequila was her white whale. “Why L.A.?”

“Why not?”

That answer actually made sense. “Sif was OK with plain old alcohol?”

“Between you and me, I think she likes appletinis better than mead.”

Sif was cool. Darcy had a not-so-secret crush on Sif. She remembered telling Steve about it once. He reacted like any man would. “We should totally invite her to my bachelorette party!”

Jane pointed to a whiteboard on the other side of the lab. “Way ahead of you.”

Darcy moved to jump off the table so she could take a closer look, but Jane’s hand on her arm stopped her. “What?” she whined.

“We’re not done here.”

“Jane, I know all this. I read the reports, too. Nothing’s clicking, OK? It sucks, but I’m dealing. I’m more than dealing; I’m fine! I know you don’t believe me, but really am!”

Jane’s eyes narrowed. “You’re talking to the future queen as Asgard. I’m pretty sure the punishment for lying to a future queen isn’t good, so you might want to cut the bullshit.”  

“Dude." She'd be impressed if she wasn't desperate to get out of there. "Were you always this blunt?”

Jane shrugged, though her lips were curved in a grin. “I got pretty testy while Thor was off-planet that first time.”

Darcy had a flashback of a shirtless Thor in the abandoned auto dealership that was their makeshift lab in New Mexico. “Understandable,” she conceded. “But you two are all hugs and cuddles now, so …”

Jane fiddled with the buttons on her oversized flannel shirt. “ _So?_ Darcy, I was living the high life in Asgard while my best friend was God knows where! I get back and she tells me she doesn’t remember everything! You should be freaking out! You should be demanding answers and sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, but instead you’re making dinner and playing videogames and pretending everything is fine!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Darcy shouted. “I got my dad back! I’m engaged to Steve and James! Again! I’m getting to know some pretty cool people. Just last week Natasha taught me how to throw a knife and it _almost_ hit the target! How cool is that?”

“It’s not reality! You can’t pretend everything is OK when it isn’t!”

“But it is!” Darcy yelled.

“No it’s not! You don’t know who took you! You don’t know why! You don’t know if they’ll try again!” Jane took a deep breath.

“I can’t control what I remember!”

“But you are!” Jane turned back to the board. “You refuse to see it, but everything you remember, everything you’ve recorded, is missing one thing. Tony. None of the memories you’ve regained concern him.” She walks over to her laptop and starts typing. “Even stories I know that are tied to Tony are altered so he’s not part of them.”

“That’s not –“

“You didn’t remember telling Steve you knew he was Captain America because that would mean admitting your father was Iron Man.” Jane scrolled through something on her laptop. “You didn’t remember your history with Clint because he was the one who outed you and Steve to Tony. You forgot you were engaged because it made you sad that Tony wouldn’t be part of your wedding.” She shoved the laptop in Darcy’s hands. “It’s all there. He’s the missing piece.”

Darcy skimmed Jane’s notes, the words she added to Darcy’s regained memories filling in some of the blanks. She saw the pattern. Her dad was missing. Larger than life Tony Stark was missing.

Jane slid a piece of paper across the table. “The medical report, after you were brought in. They tested for everything, Darce. You’d been beaten up. Your biggest injury was a cracked rib that was nearly healed, but there were no signs of sexual assault.” Her voice was cool, as if she was purposely detaching herself from the words coming out of her mouth. “There were bodies found on site. They were broken, as if someone had beaten them to death. You don’t have the strength to do that.” Jane picked up Darcy’s tablet, opening the folder of photos Darcy still hadn’t worked up the courage to look at. She held it out, an expectant look on her face. “I can do this all day,” Jane said after a few seconds.

Darcy took the tablet.

The first photo was of a building, or rather part of a building. It was cement. Plain. One wall was completely crumbled. The remaining three were covered in scorch marks. She swiped to the next photo, then another. Her body was stiff as she studied every image, as if holding herself just so would protect her from whatever would show up on the screen, but the moment of clarity she was dreading never happened. These were simply pictures; pictures of a place she was allegedly kept, definitely found. They meant nothing to her.

“Nothing?”

Darcy shook her head. She felt sick to her stomach.

“OK.” Jane ran her hands through her hair, once again her attention shifting back to the boards. “So let’s start with what we know and work our way back.”

There was roaring in her head. “Jane.”

“It’s probably best not to bring Tony into this yet. He already feels guilty enough. No need to add to it until we’re sure –“

She was cold. “Jane.”

“ -- though I’m pretty sure Tony has his own investigation going on. Don’t get me wrong, Darce, your hacking skills are sharp, but I doubt they’re as good as his.”

A whisper of a voice. A promise. “Jane!”

She looked up and blinked at Darcy. “What?”

She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. Words she was certain of a second ago that were now … gone. As if they’d never existed. She couldn’t remember them. Oh God, she couldn’t remember!

“Darcy! Hey, it’s OK!” Jane’s eyes went wide when she saw Darcy’s pale face. She quickly pushed the white boards away. She slammed the lid on the laptop and powered down the tablet. “See? It’s all gone, OK?” She tugged at Darcy’s arms until she slid off the table, stumbling as she fell into her arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she murmured as she hugged her friend. “I only wanted to help.”

Darcy shook her head. She knew that. She understood that, but she wasn’t ready. Not now, but she would be. She had to be because last night she promised herself that the Darcy Lewis who married Steve Rogers and James Barnes would be the complete Darcy Lewis, scars and all. They’d fought their demons and won. She’d fight hers, too.

And she’d kick their fucking ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted Jane to be the one to push Darcy forward. For once, she's the one taking care of someone!
> 
> Thanks for reading! See ya next update!


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close to the end!

Darcy poked her spoon at the melted mess of vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce, having long since devoured the Oreo cookies she and Jane had crumbled into their sundaes. They were sitting on one of the sofas in the family room, watching _My Big Fat Greek Wedding_ and eating their feelings, as all people should after an emotional breakdown. Darcy wasn’t stupid enough to believe that crying on her friend’s shoulder was the end of Jane's involvement. This was a temporary calm in the storm. Jane was not someone who let things go.

“How long is it going take for Steve and James to prove their worthiness to Thor?”

Jane glanced at the watch on her wrist, not that it did her any good. It was set to a completely different time zone, possibly not one on Earth. “Thor was gone for a month when he completed the tasks -- but I’m sure he’ll speed things up for them.”

“Oh God,” Darcy groaned, setting her bowl aside. She had no idea what was happening in the gym the team set aside for sparring session. Jarvis’ privacy protocols were activated and Clint wasn’t able to sneak through the vents to check on things. Both Darcy and Jane pretended they didn’t see him sitting in the armchair pouting about that, not even when he stole the rest of Darcy’s ice cream.

The elevator chimed. Darcy jumped to her feet as Thor strode into the room, a wide smile on his face. “’Tis a glorious day,” he announced, bending down to kiss Jane’s upturned lips before turning his attention to Darcy. “Your chosen fought well, little one. They have proved themselves worth and will make honorable husbands.” He took Darcy’s hands in his and squeezed lightly. She tried not to notice the bruising of his knuckles. It could not be good when someone who was virtually indestructible sported injuries. “I wish you happiness.”

“Did you leave them in one piece?” she asked, wincing when Thor threw back his head and laughed. She wasn’t joking.

“Do not fear, Lady Darcy. Your warriors have retired to their rooms to prepare themselves for the glorious feast to celebrate this step in your union.”

“That’s probably code for hiding their injuries before you see them,” Clint chimed in.

“Huh?” Darcy asked.

“Anytime Cap got banged up on a mission, he’d drag out the debrief to give his super healing powers time to put his pretty face back together,” Clint continued, ignoring the dirty looks Sam and Natasha gave him. “He didn’t want you to worry.”

Darcy dashed out of the room, determined to see the results of the “glorious battle” herself. She took the stairs, not trusting Jarvis to slow down the elevator and delay her arrival (he and James seemed to have an odd friendship of sorts). She was breathless when she pushed open the door to their apartment. The sight of Steve stripped to the waist, slouched on the couch with his eyes closed, did not help her regain her ability to breath.

His hair was slick with sweat, plastered to his skull. Colorful bruises varying from light purple to nearly black dotted his skin. He had a bag of frozen peas over one swollen eye, a second resting on his left hand. His shield lay at his feet. Darcy stepped over it, ignoring the bright spots of red that were not there the day before. She perched on the edge of the couch, not wanting to jostle Steve as his body healed itself. “How you feelin’, slugger?”

“Great,” he shifted, one arm wrapping around her waist. She gave into his light tug, curling up next to him. “I had him on the ropes.”

“I’ve heard that story before.” She gently pushed away a few strands of hair stuck to his forehead.

“Preaching to the choir,” James snorted as he walked into the room, a towel wrapped around his neck to catch the water dripping off his damp hair. He, too, was without a shirt, though he had pulled on a clean pair of gray sweatpants. His skin marked just as colorfully as Steve’s. He also sported a Thor-sized bump on the top of his head. “Damn punk was always getting himself into fights he had no hope of winning. You think he was gonna let a demigod stop him?”

“You had the first hit in this one,” Steve muttered, flinching as a drop of cold water from his makeshift ice pack dribbled down his neck.

James’ lips were curled up in a smirk as he leaned down to kiss Darcy’s forehead. “That I did.” He crouched low to take a closer look at Steve’s injuries, flesh and metal hands ghosting over his skin. Darcy watched as some of the darker bruises lightened, proof the serum was doing its job. “Time to hit the showers, punk.” He got to his feet, then pulled Steve to his. He, too, ran his fingers through Steve’s hair. “You did good.”

Steve tossed the bags of peas on the coffee table. “You did, too. Jerk.” He kissed James quickly, then leaned down to do the same to Darcy before walking towards the bathroom. James took his spot on the couch, lifting one arm for Darcy to duck under, raising an eyebrow when she shook her head.

“Not happening, Romeo; not until you get some ice on your injuries.” She got up, set on seeing what other frozen foods they had in the freezer that could help with the bump on James’ head.

“Give me a kiss, doll. ‘S all the medicine I need.”

Darcy rolled her eyes as she stuffed the now-thawed peas in the freezer and pulled out two packages of corn. She wrapped a dishtowel around one bag, then grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and the aspirin from junk drawer before making her way back to the couch. James watched her approach with a small smile on his face. “What?” she asked.

“Just thinking ‘bout all the times I took care of Steve after a fight,” he said, sinking into the cushions so the ice pack was balanced against the couch, leaving his hands free. “Used to worry what they did to him would make it even harder to keep him in one piece.”

“You’re saying he got smarter after the serum?”

“Hell no,” James laughed, swallowing the pills Darcy handed him. His body would metabolize them too quickly for them to do any good, but it always made her feel better to do something as James’ and Steve’s bodies healed. “He’s just as dumb now as he was then.”

“Must be to have fallen for you,” Steve quipped as he walked into the living room wearing a pair of cotton drawstring pants and plain white T-shirt. He, too, swallowed the medicine Darcy placed in front of him, sharing a grin with James when she wasn’t looking. His eye was nearly healed. He was still favoring his left hand, though.

“Sit,” Darcy pointed to the spot next to James.

“I’m fine,” he said even as he got settled.

“Mmm-hmm,” Darcy crossed her arms over her chest. “Make a fist.”

Steve did – with his right hand.

“Make a fist with your left hand,” she demanded.

He swallowed, but did as she asked, his fingers curling partway before he winced.

“Damn it Steve! Your hand is broken!” She propped a couple pillows under his arm and placed the second bag of frozen corn on his hand, grumbling about his inane stubbornness as she got him settled. She continued her rant as she went to the bedroom, changing into her own pair of sweatpants, one of James’ T-shirt and a sweatshirt belonging to Steve. “This is the last time either one of you is ever proving yourself worthy!” She announced as she settled on the couch in-between them. “I don’t care what Thor wants to bless in the future; you’re done. _I_ say you’re worthy. That’s all that matters, OK?”

Steve kissed her cheek. “Yes, ma’am,” he smirked, grunting when she elbowed his side.

“Absolutely,” James agreed, pouting until she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

* * *

Darcy munched on a piece of cold pizza, leftovers from the “glorious feast” they’d had the night before, otherwise known as a pizza party, complete with cartoons, soda and a videogame tournament. Pepper had opted out of the competition, choosing to settle herself on one of the couches in the game room with a stack of bridal magazines. Jane quickly gave up her remote control to join Pepper, the two of them cooing over dress designs while Darcy pretended to be engrossed in Super Mario Bros.

“Having second thoughts?” Tony asked as he snagged a piece of sausage and mushroom pizza from the plate Darcy brought him to make up for skipping breakfast and lunch.

“No,” she answered immediately.

“But?”

She shrugged. Tony took a large bite, chewing thoughtfully as Darcy busied herself with various tools on his workbench. He knew pushing her to talk when she wasn’t ready would only result in delaying what was on her mind. Starks were stubborn like that.

“Jane said something the other day and it got me thinking …”

“Yeah?”

She took a breath. “You haven’t asked me about what I remember. Not lately, anyway.”

Tony grabbed a second piece of pizza. He knew Darcy’s memories were coming back; some events faster than others. She and the Dynamic Duo were practically good as new, while Jane’s arrival seemed to have cleared up any holes Darcy had about her time with the good doctor.

“I’m missing you,” Darcy said.

Tony swallowed his pizza. He wondered when she’d make that connection. He’d been tracking things on his own, hoping that by doing so, he’d be able to figure out who had taken her, but then the pattern emerged that essentially cut him from her life, more so than she had been prior to the abduction. He stepped away for a couple of days, not wanting to admit that he was tied to whatever happened to her. He always feared that Darcy would be a victim simply because she was his daughter. He was not prepared to have that fear clarified. He rather be dead than know he was responsible for her being hurt.

“Stop it!” Darcy snapped.

“Stop what?”

She picked up his hand, clasping it in both of hers. “You think I don’t know when you’re wading into ‘I’m a terrible father’ territory?”

“Darcy –“

“You didn’t do anything wrong!” Darcy cried. “Whatever happened to me, whoever took me, it’s NOT your fault!”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” she insisted. “You can’t blame yourself for things that are out of your control! You spent my whole childhood trying to keep me safe, but life doesn’t work that way, Dad. You can prepare and plan and have contingencies for everything, but then an alien falls from the sky and everything goes to hell. You never saw that one coming. No one could.”

“I should’ve gotten you out then,” Tony told her. “Should’ve dumped the suit, turned my back on the whole deal. You were supposed to come first. I forgot that.”

She shook her head. “No you didn’t. You became Iron Man because you wanted to make the world a better place – for me and for everyone else you cared about. I didn’t get it then, but I do now.” She hopped off the table and paced around his workshop. “You tried to explain it before, to tell me it wasn’t your ego talking but a need to make up for the years you’d spent making weapons. I remember that. We fought about it. A lot. It’s not your fault I was too stubborn to listen – just like it’s not your fault what happened to me.”

“Baby girl –“

“Dad, you’re not responsible for all the evil in the world! You can try to take that on, but it’s just going to crush you.”

Tony ran his fingers through his hair. “You sound like Bruce when he’s in doctor mode.”

Darcy hugged him, resting her cheek against his chest. “He’s not that kind of doctor,” she mumbled into his shirt.

“Yeah, he always –“ Tony grabbed Darcy by the arms, moving her back so he could look her in the eyes. “Why did you say that?”

“Say what?” she asked.

“Saying Bruce isn’t that kind of doctor. He always said that! Did you know Bruce? Have you talked?”

Darcy shook her head. She looked scared. Tony couldn’t bring himself to comfort her. Not now. He knew, _knew_ , his daughter had never met Bruce Banner. The man kept to himself. When he joined the team, he opted to live in a cabin upstate rather than the apartment Tony had given him in the tower. He even chose to continue his science pursuits offsite, communicating via teleconference or e-mail rather than face-to-face. In fact, the only time Tony saw Bruce was when the Avengers assembled, but he had been absent the last few times the entire team was called. Tony thought nothing of it at the time, knowing Bruce took off for parts unknown when he felt The Other Guy was too close to the surface, but now ...

“Jarvis!” Tony shouted, pulling Darcy with him as he ran to the elevator. “Get everyone to the conference room! We need to find Bruce!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one guessed Bruce as the character who had yet to show up in the story. Is he good? Bad? What's going on? 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! My muse decided not to give me the silent treatment and you didn't have to wait for the next chapter!

Darcy had never seen the Avengers in action. Correction, she’d seen them in fighting action, thanks to 24-hours news stations and the Internet, but never had she been privy to the team’s preparations before the fighting began.

Her father was in his element, holographic screens surrounding the room as he poured through all the information they had on Bruce Banner, from his years as a professor at Culver University to his work with gamma radiation, the Hulk, SHIELD … He was focused, almost obsessively so. Darcy watched as photos and videos played, the sound muted as everyone argued about the best course of action. Everyone but her. And James.

Steve was in leader mode, going toe-to-toe with Tony and Natasha as Clint reached out to the contacts they still trusted after SHIELD collapsed. Darcy ignored the voices, tempers getting bigger the longer they argued, and studied the image of her father with Bruce, the two of them laughing over something at some restaurant.

“Did you know him?”

Darcy shook her head at James’ question.

“Not even at Culver?”

“He was gone before I got there,” she murmured, using a finger to make the photo bigger on the screen. Her dad looked happy. Really happy. He was a pro at presenting an image in the public, but nothing about this picture was faked. And Dr. Banner … From what Darcy could decipher from the information appearing on the various screens, he was a man not comfortable in his own skin, always afraid of hurting someone to the point where he isolated himself for safety, yet in that captured moment, he looked content.

“It’s killing him,” she murmured to herself, though James’ hearing was sharp enough to catch it.

“What is?”

“The idea that another friend betrayed him,” Darcy replied. “First it was Obadiah, now Dr. Banner?” She turned to James. “You know him, right? Is he capable of doing something like that?”

James leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh. If he learned anything from his decades as the Asset, it was that people were capable of anything.

Steve’s hand slamming on the conference table got everyone’s attention. Within minutes, Thor and Sam were heading to the roof to check possible locations, while Clint and Natasha were devising a flight plan to scope out the others. It was decided that Tony would stay behind, his tracking skills better suited to technology in this instance. “We’re going with Clint and Nat,” he told James. “Wheels up in ten.”

* * *

 

_It was dark. She hated the dark. She couldn’t remember a time she wasn’t scared of what lurked in the shadows. She squeezed her eyes closed. She was fine. She was fine. As long as she kept her eyes closed, she could imagine she was safe, that she was in a room bathed in light and this? This was a game. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t cold. She was hiding. Yes, that’s what this was. A game. Just keep quiet. Just stay quiet and maybe they’ll forget she’s there._

* * *

 

_It started as a shout, but it was too loud to be a shout. A roar? Was it even human? Darcy clamped her hands over her ears. She didn’t want to listen! She didn’t want to know what they did when they weren’t questioning her._

* * *

 

_Her cheek was throbbing. She pressed her hand against it. Wetness. Tears? Blood?_

_“I can make the pain stop, Miss Lewis. Just answer the question.”_

_She wouldn’t. She braced for his fist, but it didn’t come. Instead, she felt something sharp break her skin._

* * *

 

_She wasn’t strong enough. She drew her knees to her chest. She wasn’t. They knew that. They were going to use that, use her. They’d win and it would be all her fault._

_“You’re strong, Darcy. You can do this.”_

_She shook her head. She wasn’t. She couldn’t. She tried. She **did**_ _but there were more of them. Too many. And the pain. The pain. The dark._

_“Deep breath now. Come on Darcy; take a deep breath.”_

_She did._

_“Good.”_

* * *

 

_"They’ll come for you. I know it.”_

_She leaned against the cement wall that separated her from the voice. It sounded familiar, yet it wasn’t. Friend? Foe? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure she could tell the difference._

_“Do I know you?” she asked._

* * *

 

_The gun was small. How could something so small do so much damage? She watched, as if in a dream as it was pointed at her. Did he mean it? Was he going to shoot her? He was yelling. Screaming. Demanding answers. She didn’t understand the question. Why would she know that? She didn’t know anything. She didn’t know where she was, how she got there. Shouldn’t that be more important?_

_“I will kill you, Miss Lewis. It won’t help that cause, but it will hurt him.”_

* * *

 

_She should be scared. The building was falling apart around her. She smelled smoke, could feel heat. Glorious, wonderful heat. She wanted to curl herself around it. She’d never be cold again._

_He wouldn’t let her. He was loud. He was big. He would not let her go, would not let her stay._

_Darcy couldn’t bring herself to care._

_“They’ll come for you. I know it.”_

_It was a whisper of a voice. A promise._

Darcy's eyes snapped open.

* * *

 

Tony rubbed his eyes. His head was pounding. Why Pepper thought a board meeting would make for a good distraction, he’d never know. He walked down the hall of the administrative offices, intent on getting back to his workshop, back to the search. Bruce was great at keeping himself off the grid, but he was better. He’d find him. He’d find him and then he’d … Tony leaned against the wall of the elevator with a sigh.

He didn’t know what he’d do once he found Bruce.

_“You don’t know that he had anything to do with Darcy’s disappearance.” Pepper’s arms were tight around his waist, her face pressed against his back._

_He wished he could believe her. God, he wanted to believe her. When he met Bruce, they clicked. Science bros. Friends. Someone who finally spoke the same language as him. Yes, Bruce turned down his numerous offers to move into the tower, to do science with him every day, but that didn’t mean he was capable of hurting the one person Tony loved most in the world, right?_

“Mr. Stark!”

A hand appeared seconds before the elevator doors slid close. Sighing, Tony straightened to his full height, school his face to show a blank expression as the doors opened to reveal a tan-skinned man with a messenger bag strapped across his chest. “Yes?”

The man flushed. “I apologize, sir. Miss Potts had some papers she needed you to sign after the meeting –“

“You do it,” Tony interrupted. “I’m busy.”

“I’m sorry, sir; I don’t think she’ll let me get away with that.”

Tony rolled his eyes. He doubted the paperwork was important. If it was, Pepper would have made him sign before the meeting even started. She knew how he operated, that he’d bolt as soon as he could. He bit off his sigh of impatience. He didn’t have time to play this game today.

“Get in,” he said with a sigh.

* * *

 

“Jarvis, pull up video of Bruce Banner, please.” Within seconds, Darcy was watching Bruce give a lecture at Culver University. “I need audio.” Jarvis complied. Darcy listened. There was a rhythm to the way he spoke. She could hear his enthusiasm for the subject, felt a pain of sorrow at the knowledge that he was no longer allowed to share his excitement with others, but that wasn’t what she was looking for.

“Jarvis, find me video of him yelling.”

“Miss Darcy, I must advise –“

“Please. I need to hear it.”

The next clip came from her father’s lab. She watched as the two men worked over something on a metal lab table, their dark heads practically pressed together. She saw Tony’s hand move. He poked something in Bruce’s side. The other man jumped.

_“Damn it, Tony!”_

_“Nothing? Really?”_

_Bruce pulled off his glasses. “Would you please stop testing my limits!?”_

Darcy shook her head. No, that wasn’t it. “Do you have anything of him turning into the Hulk?”

The roar. It was beyond loud. She swore she saw buildings quake when the Hulk opened his mouth. She walked closer to the image, watching as he flung aliens into buildings, heedless of the weapons pointed in his direction. She gasped as he crossed paths with Steve, dressed in full Captain America regalia, but the green beast barely acknowledged him. Was he aware of Bruce’s friends? His allies?

“Is this what you wanted, Miss Darcy?” Jarvis asked.

“Not yet.” Darcy paced around the living room. Bruce Banner did not strike her as bad despite the green rage monster that lived deep inside him, but she couldn’t be sure. Nothing was clicking, but she felt something. It was there. She could feel it, but something was blocking her. “Jarvis, Bruce was big into yoga, right? Meditation.”

“Yes, Miss Darcy.”

“Do you have video of that? I need to hear his voice at his calmest.”

It took Jarvis a few minutes. The fact that the Hulk and Black Widow once meditated together was something she had to think about. Later. “Jarvis, where’s my dad?”

“He is in his workshop.”

The video was still playing as she ran out the door. She left her phone on the kitchen counter, the screen lighting up with a text from Steve.

* * *

 

Tony grew up around weapons. They were his father’s legacy, then his – and then they weren’t. He wanted better. He did not want the Stark name to be synonymous with war, with violence. He wasn’t naïve enough to think peace was something that happened without fighting, but he was smart enough, stubborn enough, to know that sometimes you took a step back in order to move two steps forward.

“I’m rarely surprised,” he said to the man pointing the gun at his head.

“Neither am I, Mr. Stark.”

Tony did not break the man’s gaze. His mind was thinking, racing, but his face was calm. It was obvious by the way the man’s hands shook, his knuckles practically white given his grip on the gun, that he was not feeling the same.

“Dad!” Darcy ran into the workroom. “Dad, it wasn’t Bruce!”

It was like it happened in slow motion. One minute, Tony was staring at the gun. The next, the man had Darcy, his arm banded around her neck, the gun pressed to her temple. “Don’t move,” he growled.

Tony slowly lifted his hands. He avoided looking at Darcy. He couldn’t look at her. If he looked at her, he’d break. He couldn’t break. He had to save her. “What do you want?”

The man laughed. In that moment, Tony realized he was more boy than man. It was his eyes. They were filled with hate. Anger. They aged him. “What do I want?” he repeated. “I want you to suffer, Mr. Stark.” He tightened his grip on Darcy. Her hands pulled at his arm, but he was too strong, powered by hate. “I want you to feel what I felt when you killed my father. Do you remember? I was a boy, younger than your daughter, but that meant nothing to you.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said automatically. “I didn’t mean to cause you pain.”

“Pain,” the man’s laugh was full of bitterness. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

* * *

 

Steve was worried. Darcy never ignored his messages. She was attached to her phone like he, according to her, was attached to his shield.

“Nothing?” James asked.

He shook his head. “Something’s wrong.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe she’s sleeping.”

“Doesn’t matter; we’ve woken her up before.”

James rested his hand on Steve’s thigh, squeezing it lightly. “We’ll be home in 15 minutes. Everything’s fine.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but everything is not fine,” Sam announced. He was seated next to Natasha, reading her tablet over her shoulder. Natasha was just as nosy as Tony, keeping feeds of the tower on a constant stream to her personal device. He was watching video from Tony’s workshop. He wasn’t alone. There was another man there, someone Sam didn’t recognize – and he had a gun pressed to Darcy’s head.

“His name is Raza, or rather his father’s name was Raza,” Bruce said after Natasha handed him the tablet. “He was with the Ten Rings, specifically the cell that kidnapped Tony.”

“This is the man that took you? Took Darcy?” Steve demanded.

Bruce nodded. “He was there.”

They found Bruce in a remote village in India two days earlier. He looked unsurprised when Natasha walked into the small dwelling he called home, though he raised an eye at the others following her. It was a credit to his self-control that he did not react to the weapons they had trained on him, weapons they did not lower until he explained that he had been taken by the Ten Rings.

_“Why?” Steve asked._

_“Why does anyone ever want me?” Bruce answered wryly. “Information. They were more interested in the Other Guy than improving on any formulas of Erskine’s serum still out there.”_

_“And you saw Darcy?”_

_Bruce shook his head. “No. I heard her. Not right away. I believe she was there before me.”_

_“What did they want with her?” James demanded._

_“Information about Tony, the Iron Man tech, but I think it went deeper. It seemed personal.”_

_"She doesn't remember you being there," Steve said._

_Bruce didn't look surprised. "They questioned her. Hurt her. When she didn't give them anything, they injected her with something. She couldn't tell me what it was, but from the way she spoke, my guess is it was a kind of truth serum. She was afraid sit would work, afraid she'd give in, so I ..."_

_"You what?"_

_His face scrunched up as he tried to find the right words. "It wasn't a trance," he explained. "It was supposed to be like a meditative state. You can condition your mind to block out that which you don't want to think about. She didn't want to give anything away about Tony, so she focused on that. I can't be sure, but whatever they injected her with, combined with dehydration, fear, sleep deprivation, starvation -- her brain shut down completely. To protect Tony, she made herself forget everything about her life once he became Iron Man."_

_"How is that even possible?" Steve asked._

_"The mind is a powerful thing," Bruce said with a sigh. "Had we been in the same cell, I might have been able to stop it, but because we were separated, conversing through a wall ..."_

_"Don't," Natasha told him. "You did what you could. You made it so she could hold out a little longer. You helped her."_

“It looks like you were right on the personal theory,” Sam told Bruce now.

“Yay,” he replied sarcastically.

“Raza’s dead, right?” Steve looked at Natasha for conformation. She was focused on her tablet, so Clint answered for her.

“Stane killed him,” he yelled from the front of the plane. “After Tony escaped, Stane went to Afghanistan to find out how he got away. Apparently he didn’t like the answers.”

“It doesn’t matter that Tony wasn’t the one to take his life,” Natasha continued, turning the tablet so everyone could see the information she found on the son. “To him, Tony was the catalyst for his father’s death. The best revenge would be to kill the daughter of the man who responsible for his father's death.”

“So why didn’t he?” Sam asked, ignoring the two super soldiers glaring at him for asking the question. “He had her for weeks. Why didn’t he kill her then?”

“He doesn’t have the connection his father had,” Natasha replied. “His interest in the Iron Man tech was a cover.”

“He played both sides,” Steve summarized.

“Two minutes out!” Clint called.

“Secure Darcy first, even if it puts Tony in danger,” Steve told everyone as they prepared themselves for the worst. “That’s what he’d want.”

* * *

 

Darcy’s head was pounding. His voice. The man that was strangling her. They were one and the same. She closed her eyes. Images were flowing through her mind, faster than she could understand them. Her father. Iron Man. Their house exploding on screen. Tony falling from the sky. Crying in the hospital. Yelling at him, screaming at him to leave the suit behind.

“He wants the suit,” she gasped, forcing the words out of her strangled throat. She felt light-headed. She didn’t know if it was from the barrage of memories of the lack of oxygen. “Don’t give it to him.”

“The suit?” The stranger laughed. “You think this is about the fucking suit?! My dear Miss Lewis, this is so much bigger than that. Eight years ago, your father erased mine from this earth. Today, we’re going to return the favor.”

“No!” Tony shouted. “Don’t hurt her! Take me! I’ll do whatever you want, just leave her out of this!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he sneered. “You’re the one who wanted to play superhero, Mr. Stark. Do you think I’d be so stupid to let you die a martyr when knowing you have your daughter’s blood on your hands is so much better?”

She reacted. It was instinctual. She slammed her foot on the man’s, digging the feel of her tennis shoes onto his toes. She threw her head back, the crack of something breaking making her forget the pain of contact. His grasp loosened long enough for her to twist out of his hold, her knee coming up to strike him where every man feared.

He fell to his knees, the gun slipping from his grasp. Darcy moved to grab it, but Tony’s hand on her arm pulled her back, his body blocking her. The sound of glass shattering announcing the arrival of Natasha, Steve and James. Sam and Clint joined them a second later.

“I told you,” Darcy said and Steve and James ran towards her. “Everything I need to know about kicking ass, I learned from Sandra Bullock.”

She jumped at the sound of the gun, blood pouring from the man’s head. Natasha holstered her weapon.

“Never turn your back on the enemy,” Natasha told Darcy.

“Yeah, well, that wasn’t covered in the sequel,” she replied, burying her face in her father’s neck.

“Is it alright to come in?” Bruce’s head peeked around the corner. “The Other Guy isn’t fond of guns.”

“Bruce!” Tony rushed to his friend. Steve and James took advantage of his absence to wrap their arms around Darcy. She was safe. It was over. “Come meet my daughter,” Tony said, dragging Bruce over to where the three bodies were wrapped around each other. “Move it,” he demanded, elbowing James and Steve aside. “I’ve been waiting for years for this. Darcy, Bruce Banner. Bruce, my daughter Darcy.”

Darcy held out her hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you," she grinned.

He shook his head. She was exactly like Tony. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started this story, I set out to do another Steve-Darcy-James fic, but this ended up being more of a Darcy and Tony father-daughter story. I think I'm OK with that.
> 
> Only the epilogue to go! I think I've filled in most of the blanks except for how Bruce and Darcy escaped, and why he left her. I'll address that in the epilogue.
> 
> Have a great weekend everyone!


	22. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Thanks for joining me on this journey!

Darcy stretched. Or she stretched as much as she could in her silk dress. God, how could such delicate fabric be so binding?

“Stop fidgeting.” Jane pinched her arm. Darcy slapped her hand. Jane moved to pinch her again, but a snap from Natasha’s fingers, coupled with one raised eyebrow, had the two women sitting up straight.

Natasha was scary. Natasha in formal wear was terrifying.

_Knock, knock_

Natasha opened the door. Bruce stood on the other side, dressed in the custom-made tuxedo Tony thrust upon him.

“Hi,” he said nervously. He looked over Natasha’s shoulder to smile at Darcy. “I’m on a mission.”

“Tony?”

Darcy sighed at Bruce’s nod and pushed herself to her feet.

“The ceremony begins in 20 minutes,” Natasha was firm.

“I know, I know,” Darcy eased out the door quickly, before Natasha changed her mind. Seriously, the woman missed her calling as a wedding planner. “I’ll be there.”

“You kind of have to!” Jane called.

Darcy rolled her eyes. The one time Jane decided to care about other people’s timetables. She pulled the door closed and took Bruce’s arm. “Let’s go before they change their mind.”

Bruce nodded. He was still uncomfortable around her. She’d told him time and time again that he had no need to feel guilty. He, or rather the Other Guy, came to her rescue. He got them out. She understood from his history – General Ross, Hydra infecting SHIELD, the Ten Rings – that he was leery to throw himself back into the fray after. He had a chance to run; he took it. She couldn't blame him for that. Steve took a bit more convincing, but he eventually started treating Bruce like a teammate, again. James was still holding out. Tony, meanwhile, was using the good doctor’s guilt in true Stark fashion: benefitting himself. Not only was Bruce now living in the tower, his lab was right next to Tony’s workshop, a decision that resulted in more explosions than anyone ever thought possible, but luckily the tower was designed by Tony and could withstand their most ambitious of experiments – so far.

“How’s he doing?” Darcy asked as they walked down the hall.

Bruce took off his glasses, polished them on his sleeve and slid them back on; a sure sign he was stalling. “Eloping would have been easier.”

Darcy shook her head. She’d said that since the beginning, but did anyone listen to her?

Bruce knocked on the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Bruce!”

“No it isn’t!” Tony shouted. “If it was Bruce, he’d do the secret knock we practiced!”

Bruce sighed. “Tony …”

“Do it!”

Bruce rolled his eyes and knocked on the door in a rhythmic series. “Do not tell anyone,” he warned Darcy before pushing open the door.

“The sooner you get over your guilt, the sooner you stop being his bitch,” Darcy whispered as she walked into the room. She wasn’t surprised that Bruce didn’t follow. He obviously thought fetching her freed him from Tony duty. She would have words with him later. She looked around the room. There was no sight of Rhodey or Happy. She’d have words with them, too.

She lifted her skirt, stepping carefully over the chess pieces littering the floor – obviously Bruce had tried to keep Tony’s mind occupied – on her way to the balcony. Tony was leaning against the banister, seemingly staring at nothing as he absently sipped from the glass in his hand. He offered it to Darcy when she joined him. She declined with a shake of her head.

“How you doin’, baby girl?”

“That depends,” she said, mirroring his stances. “If Pepper finds me, or Natasha –“

“You worry too much.”

“Says the man who spent the last four hours hanging out with his buddies. I’ve been stuck in female beauty ritual land, which is scary enough, but when the florist delivers the wrong flowers?!?” She shook her head, the horror of the moment still too fresh. “Have you ever wondered how many knives Natasha has?”

“No one can count that high.” Tony finished his drink. He turned to look at Darcy, really look at her, and smiled. “You look beautiful.”

Darcy looked down. Yeah, fancy dresses weren’t her thing and as soon as the ceremony was over, she was kicking off the heels, photos be damned, but the pain would be worth it once Steve and James got a look at her. “Thanks.” She brought her hands up to straighten Tony’s tie. “You look great, too.”

Tony smirked. “Was there ever any doubt?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. He could try to play cool all he wanted, she knew better. “Any last words of advice? I’m sure google has something that’s applicable.”

He shook his head. “How about a drink, father and daughter?”

“Didn’t Pepper give you a pre-ceremony limit?”

“Believe it or not,” he gestured with the glass, “this is my first.” Taking Darcy by the hand, he led her back into the room. “She’s a smart woman, my Pepper.”

“I don’t know what we’d do without her.”

Tony poured himself a glass, then a second for Darcy. She took it, but did not drink.

“Dad –“

“I never thought this day would come,” Tony interrupted. “I mean, I knew I was fucked up and as much as I tried not to, I was pretty sure I was going to fuck you up, too. Now look at us.” He held his arms out. “Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, is about to walk down the aisle.”

“Actually, Dad, Pepper walks down the aisle. You’ll be at the front waiting for her.”

“Eh, what do you know? You got married on Asgard. There wasn’t an aisle or music. I didn’t even get to give you away!”

She set her drink down. “Is that what this is about? Dad, it’s been three months.”

“Ten weeks," he corrected. "And, more importantly, you’re my daughter!”

“Our ceremony was in Asgard! I had to be given away by Thor – he’s Asgardian!”

“So?” he pouted.

“There also was that fear you wouldn’t actually give me away.”

Tony opened he mouth to refute the claim, but shrugged. “You’re probably right.”

“Of course I am,” she grinned. She glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. They had 10 minutes until the ceremony, which meant about five until the men who were supposed to be keeping an eye on Tony returned. “Hey, Clint’s here,” she told him, the archer's presence having been a question mark up until an hour ago due to a long-term assignment he couldn’t tell anyone about. “He brought Laura and the baby.”

Tony smiled. He had a soft spot for Cooper, having gone on the shopping spree after he was born, outfitting the baby boy’s nursery with every Iron Man toy ever made, including some still in production. It was a thorn in Clint’s side that his boy preferred his plush Iron Man over Hawkeye.

“I call dibs after the ceremony.”

“I’ll make sure he knows. After all, you need the practice.”

“I beg your pardon,” Tony scoffed. “I am a pro at holding babies. Has there been anyone who can get that kid to calm down faster than me?”

Darcy laughed. “That’s true. Just don’t use all you baby whisper magic too soon, OK?” She smiled at him. “We’re going to need it.”

The glass dropped to the floor, scotch soaking the thick carpet. Neither Tony or Darcy noticed. “You’re … “ Tony swallowed. “Baby girl, you’re pregnant? My baby is having a baby?”

Darcy’s hand settled on her lower abdomen. Steve and James were going to kill her for telling Tony without them. Hopefully they'd understand. If not, she'd play up the hormone angle. They were helpless against it. It got her French fries and ice cream at 3 a.m. last week. "Did you know Thor is the god of fertility? It turns out, when he blessed out union, it blew all methods of birth control to hell."  Tony's eyes wide as he walked over to her. Cupping her face in his hands, he stared. “Dad?”

He shook his head, pulling her close as tears gathered in his eyes.

“Don’t lose it now, OK,” Darcy told him. “If you cry, I’m gonna cry, and I really don’t want to test the effectiveness of this waterproof mascara, OK?”

Tony nodded. “I love you,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

Darcy kissed his cheek, feeling at peace. She had her husbands. She had her friends. She had her family, a family that would soon grow. She closed her eyes, wanting to remember this moment forever. “Love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote ...
> 
> Take care, everyone!


End file.
